


The Dual Revenant

by DarkVioletSunset



Series: Change of Plans [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26055304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkVioletSunset/pseuds/DarkVioletSunset
Summary: It's been a few years since Marissa was sucked into helping aliens adjust to Earth due to her accidental connection to Thundercracker. She's figured it out though, and even holds rank in the EDC now.Thundercracker has a job to keep him busy, and the humans seem to trust him more and more as time moves on. It's nice to have purpose again.Leading a stranded army isn’t what he originally planned for, but Starscream won’t let that deter him. He can't wait to leave Earth, and is actively working on a plan to get out of there. But there is some unfinished buisness that he has to clear up before that happens, and he just might find more help in his old trinemate and his partner than he could have expected.
Relationships: Marissa Faireborn/Thundercracker
Series: Change of Plans [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891432
Comments: 33
Kudos: 54





	1. It's Been A While

At this point, it was a little strange flying in a non-sentient plane or with many other people. A few years interacting with aliens will do that to you. Marissa only met one Transformer that was large enough to fit more than one human at a time, but she had only ridden with him by herself or with a small team. With every bit of turbulence or small turn the plane took, it took mental restraint not to make a snarky comment that would be wasted on confused humans or an aircraft that wouldn’t talk back. 

Those would come sooner than later. 

“May I refill your drink, ma’am?” 

Marissa looked up at the stewardess hovering over her. “No, thank you. This one was enough.” She had to make a good impression on a couple of people this afternoon, best not get started off on the wrong foot by having too much vodka before even landing. A slight smile traced her mouth; she’d get to see someone else she’d want to be sober for more than the officers. 

The sun was still high and hot when the plane landed, typical of a New Mexico summer. Marissa was approached by a man and a woman in Airforce uniforms. The man spoke first. “Commander Faireborn?” 

“That would be me. Are you here to take me to the base?” 

“That’s correct, ma’am. I’m Colonel Skelton, and this is Major Altheimer. We run the Cannon Air Force Base. Agent Fowler sent word ahead you were coming.” 

“Thank you. Let’s be on our way then.” 

“When is your return flight scheduled?” He liked to plan ahead. She could appreciate that. 

“I don’t have one. Don’t worry about it.” 

The colonel arched an eyebrow, but didn’t push it further. 

The drive over was mostly quiet. Skelton and Altheimer were stoic, but an obviously curious aura concerning her visit surrounded them. It was annoying, so Marissa decided to break the silence. 

“How has this past year with Captain Boyd been?” Smooth, she had been getting better talking with people. 

“It’s been... incredible, really.” Altheimer answered. “We’ve never seen someone basically defy the laws of physics while flying a jet. Our soldiers are working on executing the maneuvers as impressively as he does, but sometimes I even doubt that’s possible.” 

“Well, I at least hope he does more than show off. He was sent to teach, after all.” 

Skelton grunted. “He sometimes teaches too much. His lectures and plans sometimes have to be broken up because he gets so deep into it. It’s like he had experience with the aliens he’s training us to go against.” 

“Then it sounds like the EDC was right to send him to you. Sorry we have to take him away.” But not too sorry, Marissa thought to herself. “Hopefully you’ll be willing to work with the EDC again.” 

“Ha!” The colonel gave a rough bark. “As if we would have a choice. Cybertronians are real, and you and your guys are intent on making them seem normal. It won’t be long before you’ll send one of them over to us.” 

“Won’t be long.” Marissa chuckled softly to herself. 

The base was bustling with activity. Technicians were tinkering with jets, airmen were getting their flight gear on, and planes roared overhead while practicing their techniques. Marissa caught herself looking for a familiar face or jet around the area. It had only been a year, but it felt like five with all the work she’d taken on in that time. 

“Where is Boyd now?” 

“He’s out practicing a few new drills with some newly enlisted airmen. They should be returning soon.” Skelton answered. 

“I’ll need to contact him before he lands. Let me know when the tower finds him in range.” 

They parked beside a hanger not far from the tarmac the retuning jets would be landing on. It wasn’t long before the tower crackled over the Colonel’s radio announcing they had contacted Boyd’s jet. Marissa could have just phoned him, but she knew he would appreciate ending the façade with a little shock and awe. It took every fiber in her being to keep her voice from sounding giddy when the radio was handed over to her. “Captain Boyd?” 

“Mar- Is this Faireborn?!” His voice held barely restrained excitement. 

“It is indeed. I’m here to pick you up.” 

“You must be a lot stronger than the last time I saw you if you’re actually going to do that.” 

She could hear the goofy grin behind his words. “Ugh, you haven’t changed a bit. Let your team land, and then blow your cover.” 

“Blow my cover? Are you sure?” 

“Affirmative. Show them something they’ll always remember.” 

“Roger that. See you in a little bit. Over and out.” 

Skelton and Altheimer gave her a puzzled look when she gave the radio back, but Marissa offered no explanation. 

“You work with him before?” Skelton asked. 

“Oh yes, very closely for about a year before he was sent here. The EDC is probably a good bit smaller and more exclusive than you think. It’s hard to miss someone that works with us.” 

The first of the jets touched down and began to taxi back into the hanger. Its pilot came running out and saluted the Colonel soon afterwards. “Captain Boyd said he was going to circle a few times before landing and asked us to come over here and wait.” Soon six more airmen joined them, and they all stood at attention waiting for whatever came next. 

What would have been an ear shattering boom if he had been any closer came from high above them. A jet screamed past them low to the ground as though it was about to land, then jerked straight up, nosecone in the air, and seemingly stalled. A collective gasp came from the group around her. What was he doing? Did he want to crash? 

All nervous murmuring was replaced with nervous silence when the jet began to fall apart. The airmen could do nothing but watch in amazement as thrusters stretched down into what appeared to be feet attached to legs. The wings flipped upwards and arms unfolded from the underside. A helm came up from where the cockpit folded over to form a chest. The newly formed Cybertronian dropped onto the tarmac with a loud crack with his knees bent and arms outstretched. He rolled his shoulders and shook his head like he was clearing out the cobwebs. 

“Ah!” His loud voice boomed over the base as he turned around to face them. “I haven’t gotten to stretch out in my root mode for months!” The alien jet began to walk over to the group of humans and spotted Marissa standing in front of everyone else. 

“Faireborn!” He exclaimed. “It’s been too long. Good to see you again.” 

She couldn’t keep herself from letting a smile trace her lips at his greeting. “Likewise, Thundercracker. I hear you’ve been doing good work here.” She let her eyes wander over the Cybertronian now before her. “I had honestly forgotten you had to change your paint job before you left.” 

Thundercracker grimaced a bit when she pointed it out. “Yeah, well, part of being undercover is fitting in, and that meant gray.” He shrugged, then he looked towards Colonel Skelton, stood at attention, and saluted. “Sir, Captain Boyd ready for debriefing.” 

It was clear the Colonel wasn’t prepared for a giant nearly four stories tall to salute him, and definitely not reveal that the EDC had sent an actual alien over to teach flying tactics. “Uh, at ease, Boyd. Wait, what is your name?” He looked over at Marissa. “Did you say his name was Thundercracker?” 

“Yes. We have a lot to talk about before I leave today. He is my flight back, so we have plenty of time.” 

Being a liaison and basically advertiser for aliens was something she had gotten pretty good at over the past two years. Marissa explained that sending Thundercracker here at been part of an outreach, to prove that alien and human military could share information and tactics. Thundercracker had gone back into his holoform unit, and sat beside Marissa with his arms crossed defensively. Now that it was clear to everyone the Airforce had no power over him, he was a bit freer with his expressions. Thundercracker made sure to still show respect to the man in charge in front of everyone though. No reason to immediately burn a bridge being stupid. 

Skelton had seen a lot of things in his days. Robots disguised as one of his jets was not one of them. He considered himself an even-tempered man, and decided to let Captain Faireborn explain everything. Not much was cleared up for him, however. He wasn’t entirely sure how something like that had slipped under his nose. 

“Why did the EDC deem it necessary to send a Cybertonian into our midst without informing me?” Skelton sat across from them, hands overlapping on top of his desk as he leaned forward. 

Marissa was not to be intimidated. “Thundercracker just showed who he was, and all you know of him is what you know of Josh. From what I understand, you liked Josh. Now you have an aversion to the same person.” 

“I don’t appreciate being lied to, Faireborn.” 

“I don’t either.” She leaned forward to match his position. “Tell me truthfully then, would you have accepted Josh as a flight instructor if you had known what you know now?” 

They shared a hard stare at the other. Finally, Skelton relented. “No, no I would not have. After the bombing, I would not have trusted him.” 

This time, Josh spoke up. “That’s why I’m here. To make sure that never happens again. We’re part of an organization committed to defending the Earth against these threats. Especially if they are extraterrestrial, like myself.” 

Altheimer had been standing to the side the entire time, listening quietly. At the pause in conversation, she stepped forward. “If I may sir, I believe we should continue the training that Thundercracker had given us. Not only has he been teaching new flight tactics to our airmen, he’s been working with the technicians too, telling them how to tweak certain systems. I can attest our jets have needed less tune ups and flown better with his advice.” 

A rare cocky grin encompassed Josh’s face, and he looked over at Marissa to see her reaction. Internally, she was very proud of him; externally, she remained calm and stoic. She knew when Fowler had given him this assignment, he would be good at it. 

She’d just tell him that later. 

\----- 

“Well, that went well!” 

The pair of EDC agents walked back to the hanger where Thundercracker was currently parked. The colonel seemed to accept that transformers would be around more often than not, so he begrudgingly agreed to consider other transfers in the future. Now they needed to be on their way. Prime was expecting them in the morning, and the sun was just about to set. 

Once they reached the hanger, Josh stopped and closed the large doors behind them. Marissa watched the door slowly creep closer until the outside was hidden from view, then began to walk towards the jet again. Even with the overhead lights on, it was still a bit dim inside the hanger. 

“You know we have to go right back out those doors.” It was a statement, not a question, that she vocalized. 

Somehow, Thundercracker crossed the space between then faster than she expected. A hand ghosted over her shoulder and landed on her collarbone. “I know.” The incognito seeker whispered from behind. “We didn’t have a second for me to give you a proper greeting though.” 

Her breath caught in her throat. Marissa and Thundercracker had been apart for nearly a whole year. While she knew time was different for this nearly immortal species, a year was still quite a while to not see your significant other. She wasn’t even sure if he would feel the same. Due to him being undercover, they hadn’t talked hardly at all besides mission updates and the rare briefing. Definitely nothing outside of professional settings. 

His fingers traced her neck and he set his chin on the opposite shoulder. “I’ve missed you.” He murmured. 

Marissa turned around to face him, and found herself nose to nose with the crazy man. “I wasn’t sure you would.” 

“You think so little of yourself? Now, now.” Hands lowered and placed themselves on her hips and drew her close. “I would hope you know me better than that.” 

“I -” words died in her mouth as he kissed her. Oh, he was good at that. Often, he had utilized kissing as a weapon, keeping her from over thinking or drowning in her own thoughts. She reluctantly pushed away from him, trying to focus on the mission at hand. 

“We can do the hellos later. Preferably in a more private setting than the Cannon Airforce Base hangers.” 

“Killjoy.” He chuckled. “But you’re right. There will be plenty of time for me to reintegrate myself back into the EDC.” He leaned closer once more. “And you.” 

“Jesus Christ.” Marissa couldn’t repress a shiver that ran down her spine. “Get yourself out of here. Let’s get back to our base.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

Several airmen had gathered around the doors of the hanger, but had backed up when the doors opened. Thundercracker had to crouch to leave the hanger. While it was unnecessary to leave in this fashion, he wasn’t done showing off just yet. Being forced to maintain one form made him determined to stay in root mode for as long as possible. Marissa continued to walk ahead as the airmen started pelting the Cybertronian with questions. 

“Guys! I can’t stick around. You should be getting a briefing later.” He wasn’t quite out the hanger yet, so if he stood up his wings would clip the edge of the doors. 

They all began to back up, and one last question was asked by someone in the crowd. “How did you act so natural around us humans?” 

“Oh believe me. It wasn’t easy learning how to be human. Thankfully, I had help back then.” With that, Thundercracker gave a short wave and stood all the way up. 

He began to leisurely walk out to the tarmac to follow Marissa. It was a bit strange walking over to the runway after all this time. As a polite gesture, he contacted the ATC Tower to let them know he was on his way out. 

“Thundercracker to tower, asking for permission to take off.” 

The man in the tower clearly wasn’t expecting him to ask. “Er, tower to Thundercracker, you are cleared for takeoff.” 

The jet chuckled at the man’s short fumble of words. “Thanks, Thomas. See you later.” 

“Yes sir!” 

With that, Thundercracker stopped dead in his tracks and looked down at Marissa. She noticed the suspicious grin growing on his face, took a step back and held her hands up defensively. “Oh no, don’t you dare-” 

She was interrupted when a large hand came down and scooped her up as he began to bolt down the runway. Instead of taxiing down the runway like a normal jet, he decided to run on foot just because he could. The whole of the Airforce base watched with in slight disbelief as he reached the end, jumped, and transformed into the jet they were familiar with. With an earth-shaking sonic boom, he left them all behind. 

Marissa pounded on his display inside his cockpit. “Jesus! Why do you always have to do that? Can’t you let me just sit down comfortably like a normal person inside a jet would?” She grumbled. 

“What’s the fun in that? You and I have missed out on so much time, I figured you couldn’t wait to do this again.” 

“I think I could have lived without being tossed in the air again.” 

“Such lies.” The jet chided. “Of all the people you know, you’d rather get thrown in the air by me anytime.” 

Marissa sighed. “I’ll give you that. I’ve been flying with Silverbolt lately, and I’m not a fan of his constant need for loop the loops.” 

“He probably does them really sloppily too. Want me to show you how it’s done?” 

“Absolutely not!” 

\----- 

Life on the Nemesis had improved dramatically. They were still rationing, but now that was out of a need to convert any extra energon into ship fuel instead of basic survival. Somehow, Starscream’s Decepticons were much more reasonable, despite being the same people. Perhaps it was due to having an achievable goal. 

The combiner Devestator was known for his destruction, but his components longed to be the builders and planners they were made to be. It was all too easy to agree when Starscream gathered them together and explained Megatron’s “truly accidental and sad death” and asked if they would follow him. Obviously it wasn’t true, but no one felt the need to point that out. None of the gestalt liked Optimus Prime, but they liked being stuck on Earth worse. They understood Autobots and Decepticons needed to work together if they wanted to go home and begin repairs on their precious Iacon. It still hurt to think about the state the city had been left in. 

So it made sense Starscream would choose Scrapper as part of his command. While it was widely accepted that Scrapper wasn’t Soundwave, and would never be Soundwave, he was given the same respect the former Communication’s Officer nearly ripped out of everyone. After all, he had five other mechs that were essentially extensions of himself. Scrapper might not read minds, but he had ears everywhere. When the Nemesis crashed on planet Earth, the head of Devestator never imagined he would be the new TIC of the Decepticons. Much less that Starscream trusted him enough to give him the position. Actually, trust probably wasn’t the right word, but Scrapper was good at taking command and organizing, and Starscream could see value in that. 

Today was another video call with Prime. Ever since he had agreed that the Nemesis was a more plausible choice to leave Earth due to the Ark being nearly completely buried under a mountain, Prime insisted on these constant check ups to make sure they hadn’t left without them. In exchange, the Autobots would send energon to them while they worked. Decepticon Command would repeat statistics with any numbers that changed, but even Prime should know they weren’t anywhere near stable enough to leave Earth’s ocean, much less its atmosphere. Much gnashing of teeth was had whenever the video feed was disconnected. 

:Scrapper.: 

Starscream’s voice rang in his head. :Starscream. What can I do for you?: 

:Go get Skywarp for me. He should be down in the engine room tinkering with the fuel lines. I think he has his comm line off to avoid any interference or distractions.: 

It was surprising how well Skywarp knew himself. Whenever he wanted to focus, he turned off comms and even his audial receptors because he understood he was easily led astray. Scrapper would physically have to go get his attention while keeping a safe distance. They all remembered when Skywarp had been startled by Swindle and decked him across the face. 

:Alright. Do you want us in the control room afterwards?: Scrapper asked. 

:Yes, I have some information we need to review before the meeting.: 

:Be right there, my lord.: 

Scrapper left the ship’s blueprints he had been studying and locked his office. His team was working night and day on repairs and making sure the ship was getting ready as fast as possible. Being part of the gestalt made it easy to gather new information to present at meetings as well. Again, he suspected Starscream had already thought of this when asking him to become TIC. One thing he could never fault the wily seeker on was his ability to plan ahead. 

The smell of burnt fuel permeated the air of the engine room. As Starscream suspected, Skywarp was elbows deep in the innards of an engine. When Starscream revealed Skywarp as the new SIC, most people felt like he was playing favorites. Skywarp? In a position of power? Ridiculous. 

But Skywarp proved more than capable. He didn’t like making public appearances or speeches, but somehow, any job assigned to him got done quickly and effectively. Machines and geography were his specialties. Maps had been updated beyond anyone else’s capabilities, making the search for extra fuel infinitely easier. Nemesis mechanisms that needed fixing began working at full capacity. Scrapper once asked him how he was so familiar with mechanical engineering, and was met with, “When you find yourself with a burnt out warp drive and no one to repair it, you have to learn to help yourself. It just made sense to expand my knowledge to other engines and stuff.” Like it was obvious. 

Megatron had been ignoring an enormous asset all this time. Even the Contructicons valued Skywarp’s input on a few things. 

Currently, Starscream had Skywarp working on repairing the engines and drives on the Nemesis. The room was littered with his tools and grease, but the sounds of the engine were much smoother than when he began. Scrapper picked up a stray bolt on the ground and tossed it at the black jet’s helm. Skywarp whipped around, fists held up like he was expecting a fight, but lowered them when he saw it was Scrapper. 

“Oh, it’s you.” Skywarp commented. “I had my audials on, you could have just said something.” 

“You did?” 

“Hey, gotta know if the engine sounds like it might explode. Not much use teleporting away from an explosion if you don’t hear it coming.” 

Scrapper just hummed his agreement at that. “Starscream is asking for us.” 

“Figures. Let me just seal this off…” he turned around and twisted something just out of sight, “and we’re good for now! Let’s go.” 

Teleporting still was a foreign experience for the gestalt leader. It somehow cut him off from the gestalt link in that instant, and it was very disorienting. Skywarp said it was the same for the trine link, and he would get used to it, but personally, Scrapper was hoping he wouldn’t be teleporting that often. 

In the control-room-turned-Starscream’s-lab, the Decepticon Lord was putting the finishing touches on a few colorful vials before acknowledging his commanders had come in. 

“What’s up, Screamer?” Skywarp was literally the only mech that could call him that, and only in private. Anyone else would probably get a blast from his null rays. 

Starscream ignored him and looked at Scrapper. “I’m going to need Mixmaster to test the viability of these synthetic fuel samples. If any of them work, I need to know immediately.” 

Then to Skywarp. “Have any of your search parties found any trace of Shockwave?” 

Skywarp shrugged. “As good as I am finding new places to look, he’s got himself holed up somewhere I can’t see or haven’t noticed. Which is hard in itself. I honestly don’t know how he’s managed to stay out of sight for two whole solar cycles.” 

Neither of the seekers were going to forgive Shockwave for taking Thundercracker from them. If the cycloptic scientist had kept his servos off of him, they would still be a trine. Priorities demanded the Nemesis be fixed first, but it never kept them so busy they weren’t actively searching for their sworn enemy. Thundercracker wasn’t coming back, and it was his fault. 

“Let’s just get this over with and get back to work.” Starscream hated these calls more then anyone. The three of them made sure they had all relevant information ready, and called Prime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I’ve been tweaking this story forever! There’s still a lot I have to write, but I finally got this chapter to a place I’m satisfied with.


	2. We've Been Waiting for Some News

Several grainy images were spread out on the computer screen in the Autobot command room. They were all in black and white, dark, but showing a very prominent figure in the background. One that made everyone very nervous, but hopeful at the same time. No matter how much they searched or shared information with the new Decepticon SIC, Prowl and Jazz couldn’t figure out how they only just now spotted Shockwave sneaking around. Earth was made up of very small inhabitants (comparatively to the rest of the universe) so one would think that a nearly thirty-foot mechanical alien would be more obvious. 

Definitely something to bring up during the meeting today. 

“Ya thinking what I’m thinking?” Jazz prodded gently at the insinuation. 

“Yes.” Prowl nodded grimly. 

“Why now? What does that weirdo have up his sleeve?” 

“We don’t have sleeves.” 

“Ya know what I meant, Prowl. Shockwave wouldn’t let himself be seen without a reason. Same with MECH. They’re up to something.” 

“Obviously.” 

Jazz stared at his nearly monosyllabic partner. “I really don’t know why you and Magnus ain’t better friends. Ya have just about the same sense of humor and thought processes.” 

\----- 

:Thundercracker and Commander Faireborn to base, requesting entry.: 

It was about 10 pm when Thundercracker and Marissa got into range of the Autobot base’s comms. They could have been there sooner, but they had a lot of catching up to do. 

“How’s Ayana and Sideswipe doing?” The seeker asked. 

“They’re posted in Los Angeles. Every now and then there seems to be possible MECH activity, so we figured someone should be there in case they actually do show up.” 

Part of the requirements with the EDC was the US Government needed a human “responsible” for the Cybertronian when dispatched. Resulting in what they called handlers. Marissa was Sideswipe’s first handler until Thundercracker was cleared to work without limitations. That’s when Ayana stepped in. 

What a pair. 

Both of their outgoing personalities threatened the entire base. Their training sessions were loud. Not only did she train with guns, Ayana had a long, electrified spear she trained with that was designed to stun and paralyze Cybertronians, and sometimes she left it on when practicing moves with Sideswipe. Ratchet wanted to kill them both several times. Sideswipe didn’t mind too much, saying, “Yeah it hurts. But how will she know she hit the right spot unless it’s on?” 

“If she studies her anatomy lessons then she won’t need to have a live demonstration!” Ratchet snarled back. 

“Reading a book and field testing are very different.” Ayana had countered. 

It was probably a lot quieter in the base without them. Both were good at gathering intelligence, so when Optimus brought up Los Angeles, Prowl recommended them. 

Thankfully, the women were able to communicate frequently and keep each other company. Marissa still kept her distance from everyone, and sending both Thundercracker and Ayana off on missions and leaving her on the Autobot/Human base ate at her. She only had those two friends, after all. While Thundercracker’s mission dictated that he maintain radio silence except when Optimus checked in with him, Ayana was given much more freedom to call whenever she wanted. Their chats kept Marissa sane more than she cared to admit. 

“It really has been a while.” Marissa finished talking about Ayana. 

“It has. Will I still have the same habsuite when I get back?” The jet rumbled back at her. 

“As acting commander, I saw no reason to put you anywhere else.” 

“Nice.” 

As the base doors came into view, Marissa braced herself for the short free fall that came with Thundercracker’s transformation. It always gave her a short bout of anxiety, but she knew he wouldn’t drop her. The cockpit opened as it dipped forward, and she rolled out into Thundercracker’s waiting hand. He expertly landed on his feet in front of the base and strolled in. 

“Welcome back, Commander Faireborn. Welcome back, Thundercracker.” Blaster’s voice came over the loudspeakers in the room. 

“Never thought I’d say this, but it’s good to be back in the Autobot base.” The seeker was visibly more relaxed than he had been back at Cannon. 

“It’s good to have you back.” Marissa agreed. “We have a meeting with Decepticon command in the morning. Until then, you can fix your paint or catch a little actual recharge. I’m going to shower off and get some sleep.” 

They continued towards the checkpoint in an amicable quiet. After the guards let them through, he set her down so she could be on her way to her room. “Have a good night, TC.” Marissa said before leaving. 

“Yeah. I’ll see you in the morning.” Thundercracker waved before turning around to head to his quarters. 

Marissa was a little disappointed that’s how her night was ending. After he approached her in private in the hanger, she was sure he was going to say something else. Instead, here she was watching him walk away. She could be the one to suggest it, but maybe he wanted to be alone since he had been surrounded by people with no chance at privacy for nearly a year. 

Back in her room, she bathed and changed into loose grey sweatpants and a basic black EDC shirt. To be better prepared for the meeting with Starscream in the morning, she had taken a few reports with her to read before going to sleep. Energon and other resources were to be transported to a neutral place once a month, and picked up by a Decepticon party. Usually, she just delegated reports and inventory to someone else, but Optimus had specifically requested she join the meeting since Lennox was away. 

It had been a few hours since she had seen Thundercracker off. Sleep beckoned to her, and she knew not much else was going to stick if she kept reading. She packed up the reports and began to settle in her bed when her phone began to buzz. Her personal phone, not her work phone. Blearily wondering who could be calling her at this hour, she didn’t even check the caller ID as she answered. 

“Faireborn here. Who’s this?” 

“Uh, it’s me. Didn’t you see it was me calling? Or did you delete my number?” 

The voice on the other end sounded a little hurt. Marissa pulled the phone away and actually looked at who was calling and answered quickly. “Oh! TC! No, I’m sorry. I just didn’t check to see who it was. I still have this number saved. What’s the matter? Why are you calling?” 

“Nothing. I can’t call you for no reason?” 

She sighed. “You can call me whenever. I was just surprised. It has been a while since you’ve been able to call.” 

“True. Do you want to come over?” 

“What?” 

“Spend the night in my room. Your bed is still here, after all.” 

“I… I’d like that.” Marissa stammered a bit. “I’ll be right there.” 

She packed a few necessities in a small bag before heading over so she would be able to get ready in the morning without returning to her room. On the way over, the commander tried to keep her face as neutral as possible. This visit didn’t need to aggravate any rumors of nepotism. They had already gone through that when she applied to be Thundercracker’s handler. It was ruled that while she was human, Cybertronians didn’t have the same standards and therefore, because this partnership was between a human and non-human, the laws didn’t apply in the same way. They tried to keep the relationship on the down low anyway. 

Besides, most soldiers were wary of the seeker and didn’t want to partner with the ex-enemy. 

She passed through the checkpoint without a word, not even pausing to acknowledge the guards. When she finally stood before his door, she gave a short knock instead of letting herself in. With a whoosh, it opened, with a very excited seeker behind it. “You made it!” 

“What, was I not supposed to?” 

Thundercracker was back to his old color scheme. The paint was renewed, and he shone like he was freshly polished. Marissa noted that he still kept the Autobot badge or Deception brand off his wings. 

He looked good. So she told him so. 

Thundercracker allowed himself to preen a little, lifting his wings so the red stripe accentuated their shape. “It’s nice getting out of the ugly grey. It took a while to recolor myself. Sorry it took so long.” 

So that’s what he had been doing. Marissa relaxed, and threw her bag on the bed in the corner. “Good to see the old you. Or you in general.” 

Her knees gave out as he scooped her up and brought her up to his face. The way the jet smiled at her sometimes made her forget he was older than the human race itself. Marissa returned the smile, and reached out to bring her hand down his jaw. Much like a human, he tilted his head like he wanted to press his face into her touch. The size difference had been scary at first, even if he had a holoform to defer to if he wanted to be on her level. It felt wrong to ask him to change for her, so she almost never asked him to use it. 

“I’ve missed you.” Thundercracker murmured. 

“You’ve already said that.” Marissa allowed a breathy laugh at that. 

“But it’s true.” He insisted. The redhead stood up in his palm and gave him a kiss on the nose. 

She felt him jerk and shift at the kiss. His tone changed and seemed to drop an octave when he said, “We have a little catching up to do.” 

“I don’t suppose you mean going over the energon supply reports, do you?” Marissa asked in a teasing voice. 

“No.” He growled, showcasing his sharp teeth. 

She had missed him too. 

\----- 

All in all, four hours of sleep wasn’t too bad. Marissa had managed to look presentable in record time, and didn’t have to run to the meeting because she had Thundercracker to carry her. He didn’t mind, and rather enjoyed having her on his shoulder. 

If Optimus was surprised to see her on Thundercracker’s shoulder, he didn’t show it. “Welcome, I apologize for not being there to receive you last night. Faireborn has already sent ahead the mission reports, so I didn’t feel like you needed another debriefing immediately.” 

“No harm done, Prime.” The seeker waved off the apology. “I must admit though, I’ve never really been a part of these meetings. Why was I included in this one?” 

“We will discuss it in the meeting. Starscream will be calling soon.” 

While he wasn’t too excited to see the Decepticon Lord’s face, Thundercracker knew it was necessary that the faction leaders meet. After all, they were eventually planning on leaving Earth on the Nemesis together, so they would have to form some sort of camaraderie. 

The screen overhead began to ping, signaling Starscream was calling. Optimus centered himself in front, and nodded to Prowl who answered the call. Decepticon command was assembled, with Starscream’s sardonic face staring down at the Autobot leader. 

“Prime. Always a pleasure.” 

Thundercracker shifted uncomfortably at the unique voice that came over the call. It had been a while since he had heard his old trine speak, and it brought up a lonely and nostalgic feeling. His optics shifted to look somewhere, anywhere else but the screen. 

Optimus exchanged slight pleasantries, and went right into statistics and logistics. Oil was getting more expensive, and the ‘salaries’ the Autobots were on from the US Government were affording them less and less oil to convert. They needed a contingency plan and other energy sources to convert. The Autobots favored solar, but Starscream didn’t like the idea of the Autobots being in charge of both forms of energy, and insisted some Decepticons stay on site at all times. 

“Who would you want to be stationed there, then?” Optimus asked wearily. 

“The Rainmakers.” 

Prowl slammed a fist on the table. “Absolutely not! Outliers guzzle energon. You want to send three of them? You’ll drain our reserves dry just to station them out there.” 

It was Scrapper that answered that argument. “Most of us are working class or MTOs. We all use more energon. Why do you think we had to ration long before you?” 

Prowl sat back in his chair. “Well, you can at least send some without sigma abilities.” 

Starscream rolled his optics. “Fine. I will consider others for the job if we choose to harness solar energy. Now, about the last shipment you sent us...” 

In the back of the room, Thundercracker was losing interest quickly. He wasn’t part of the shipments or even the packing process, and Marissa at most was the overseer when it was dropped off. Neither of them were very involved, so they were wondering why they were even here for the meeting. 

Finally, the topic of the shipments was wrapping up. Optimus motioned for Jazz to come forward for the next part. The special ops mech said nothing at first before typing up something from his personal data pad. On the screen, Skywarp jerked and looked over to the side, presumably to another computer. “What’s this?” The seeker reached forward and pressed a few buttons just out of sight, and froze. 

“Well?” Starscream glanced to his second impatiently. He sat up and leaned forward to the second screen, then whirled back around with his optics blazing. “This had better not be a joke, Prime.” 

“It’s not.” Answered Jazz. “Shockwave was spotted in Flagstaff, Arizona. We suspect he has been hiding in the Grand Canyon. There are caves in there big enough to hide one of us in. Would you like to send some of yours to join us in the search?” 

This part of the conversation had got Thundercracker and Marissa’s attention immediately. Almost automatically, the blue seeker came forward, straining to see if the picture that Jazz had sent was visible from their point of view. Prowl’s arm came out and stopped him, holding out the data pad. Sure enough, that was Shockwave creeping around some building. 

“Of course, we want in on the search!” Starscream and Skywarp both snapped at the same time. 

“Very well.” Optimus remained calm. “We will send you our coordinates and meet your team there in four cycles.” 

“Fine by me.” The Decepticon Lord turned off his end of the call with no further goodbyes. 

Optimus turned and looked at Thundercracker, who was shaking in anger. “Are you able to join the search party?” 

The blue seeker collected himself a bit before answering. “You couldn’t keep me away.” 

Marissa gripped the side of his helm, mind racing. She knew who Shockwave was, and what he had done to Thundercracker. This was yet another dangerous, unpredictable enemy, and needed to be taken down. While her seeker could fight with the best of them, it didn’t mean she still wasn’t worried about him. 

\----- 

It had been awkward overseeing the pickup when Skywarp was the one leading the retrieval. Marissa had been assigned to oversee the first few dropoffs since she had more experience with the Decepticons. The woman and the seeker had never met, but very clearly knew who the other was when they came eye to optic. Unlike the Autobots, most Decepticons never knelt to her level or brought her up to theirs. Skywarp continued to stare at her while the rest of the mechs moved the supplies into a shuttle. Marissa finally had enough of his evil eye, and had turned to him, shouting, “What do you want?” 

A thought crossed her mind that maybe that was not the best way to introduce herself to the new Decepticon SIC, and ex-trine mate to her significant other. 

Skywarp snarled, sharp fangs similar to her blue seeker’s revealing themselves when he opened his mouth. “I’m only trying to figure out what Thundercracker sees in you, organic.” 

“Figure it out later. We are here to drop off the fuel, and go. I’m not required to talk to you about anything else.” She shook a stapled stack of papers with the list of resources they were handing over. “Can you read this? Go verify that we’ve done our part.” 

The black and purple seeker narrowed his optics, and reached for the invoice. He pinched it in his fingers and took it from Marissa’s hand. A data pad appeared in his hand, brought out from his subspace, and scanned the invoice to the pad. After he completed the scan, he just dropped the papers. Marissa watched, unamused, as the invoice fell into the dirt. 

“Great, thanks. Let me know if you need anything else.” She brushed off the papers and walked away. 

“I don’t need anything from you, fleshbag.” Skywarp called to her. 

“I’ll let Optimus and Starscream know you cancelled the order then.” Marissa snarked back. 

“You know what I meant!” 

This time around, the attitude wasn’t much different. Decepticon command had somehow reached the meeting spot before them, and even more surprising, waited for the Autobots. As soon as Thundercracker touched down with Optimus in tow, followed by Silverbolt and Slingshot, hostility was in the air. Everyone expected the Autobot leader to be there, but since Starscream was still new to the position, no one was sure if he would come. 

Whether it was in a show of power or just to have more bodies to search with, Scrapper had his entire gestalt behind him. It made Silverbolt and Slingshot immediately unhappy, and they were throwing each other looks that suggested they were arguing with each other about their own gestalt staying behind. 

Starscream was short and to the point, marching up to Optimus with an already exasperated look. “Finally, you made it.” His optics flicked over to Thundercracker and lingered there for a moment, then to Marissa sitting on his shoulder, before looking back at Optimus. “Let’s get started.” 

Optimus and the Constructicons would patrol the bottom on the canyon, the seekers would fly low to the ground above the canyon, and the Aerialbots would keep an optic open from high in the sky. Thundercracker wasn’t thrilled to be working so close to the other seekers, but they were built to respond faster and would have left the other flight frames behind the moment they made contact, so it made sense to fly together. Marissa even brought flight gear along to wear in preparation. 

It felt all too natural, Thundercracker didn’t even mean to and he found himself falling into formation behind Starscream like old times. Marissa noticed, “Did they ask you over your comms to do this?” 

“No. It's just a force of habit. I was always flying on the right. Formation One.” Thundercracker was sure the other two had recognized it. 

It was then a comms request came from both Starscream and Skywarp. He didn’t really want to accept it, but the situation called for some talk between them. 

“Yeah?” Thundercracker responded to both pings. 

“Switch with Skywarp. He’s my second, not you.” A demand from Starscream. 

“S’ok. I get it.” Skywarp did a little upwards twirl in the air to allow Thundercracker to dip into his former position. “New Formation One will take a while for me to get used to. Especially since we don’t have a full trine.” 

“You two haven’t found another third?” 

“No. Who would we choose? Slipstream? I’d rather pull out my right optic than trine with her.” Starscream seemed more irritated than usual. 

Thundercracker snickered at that. “She’s alone because no one would trine with her. I have this theory that she would absorb any seeker that tried to trine and gain their power.” 

Skywarp laughed, and after a second, Starscream even chuckled at the thought. 

Marissa listened with rapt attention. Thundercracker had left his comms on for her to listen in. The way they talked with each other, even in this short exchange, suggested a strained familiarity they were holding back. Thundercracker had told her that seekers were very social, and had attempted to explain a trine dynamic, but there was no real human relationship that was similar, so Marissa still wasn’t clear in the ins and outs of it. Either way, the three of them were very close. 

It would have felt like an invasion of privacy, if she wasn’t sure that Thundercracker had meant for her to hear them chatter. Their conversations while they were searching were very shallow, nothing revealing anything important. A lot of it was retelling of old stories, a safe territory to talk about. 

“Are you OK?” It took Marissa a second to realize he was talking to her and not to the others. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just listening.” 

“I didn’t mean to keep you out. It’s just... hard to explain being around them again.” 

She leaned her head back into the seat. “Don’t worry about it. Just as long as you’re still searching for our target.” 

“I’m a seeker. Of course, I am.” 

They flew back and forth over the canyon for a few hours. Marissa almost felt like taking a nap when a voice she didn’t recognize came over Thundercracker’s comms. “Target spotted. Proceed to coordinates.” 

All three seekers turned as one. It was showtime.


	3. Revenge Nearly Gone Wrong

“I wish Superion were here.” 

Silverbolt rolled his optics, or would have if he had been in root mode. Slingshot was very competitive, and having the Contructicons around was really irritating to him. Yes, it did rub Silverbolt’s ailerons the wrong way, but he had to act like it didn’t to keep the peace. Optimus was sure they didn’t need a large team. 

“Look, it would be hard for Superion to maneuver in the canyon if we find Shockwave. I don’t think even Devestator will form. They just brought more along to help search. Scrapper is part of command too, so it just makes sense they all came.” Silverbolt was trying to be the voice of reason. 

The other mech wasn’t having it. “Suspicious.” 

“Just... focus on looking for Shockwave. We’re supposed to be getting along with Starscream and his ilk.” 

The two planes continued to languidly fly back and forth over the canyon. The seekers below were flying faster than them, and would pass them every now and then. Even though it had been nearly two years since he left the Decepticons, seeing Thundercracker flying with his old trine made the Aeiralbots nervous. Brought up some bad memories. The Command Trine had given them a lot of trouble in the past. 

“You think he's gonna leave us?” 

Silverbolt started at the question Slingshot posed. “Why would he do that?” 

“Look at them. Flying like they were meant to be.” 

“They were together for over four million years. It’s probably instinct.” 

“All the more reason. He has to deal with us back at the base, and we can’t do the same moves he can. Seekers are different.” Slingshot was insistent that Thundercracker’s presence on the Autobot base was temporary. It had been incredible being taught flying tactics by the rogue seeker, but there were some things he could do that the Autobots just weren’t built for. Powerglide had to sit out a lot of the training. 

Secretly, Silverbolt was worried about Thundercracker leaving as well. While he had taken off his Decepticon brand, he had also refused the take on the Autobot badge. It was like he didn’t want to be nailed down. Many had called him a traitor or mercenary, but he was steadfast in his resolution to not identify with either side anymore. 

All three of the seekers below banked hard and began to dive down. At the same time, his thoughts were derailed when a ping from an unknown comm system hit him. Considering the circumstances, it was probably one of the ‘Cons calling. Silverbolt answered it with a, :Hello? Who’s this?: 

:Scavenger. I detected an anomaly in the rock formation down here. We’re pretty sure this is it. Scrapper says you guys should get down here.: 

:Oh he does, huh?: 

:Yep. See you in a bit.: Scavenger hung up. 

Silverbolt didn’t need to relay the message, because the gestalt link told Slingshot enough. The Aeiralbots dove down to join in on the upcoming action. 

\----- 

Thanks to his time with them, Thundercracker could recognize when Skywarp and Starscream were trying to hide their feelings. The particular emotion they were trying to cover was pure, unadulterated rage. Not to say Thundercracker wasn’t angry himself. While he was in a better place in life than he had been in a long time, he had been drug through the mud to get there, and the violation of his mind that had lead to him leaving the Decepticons was Shockwave’s fault. The Ex-Command Trine was ready to rip Shockwave apart for causing the chain of events that eventually separated them. 

Transforming into root mode as they fell, Marissa landed in his servo with an SMG in hand. It had been a while since they had fought side by side, and it was fitting that they were going to confront Shockwave together. Marissa had never met the mad scientist, but had been affected by his actions when she met Josh, and had been caught up in the Cybertronian war ever since. Thundercracker would never be angry at Shockwave for causing him to meet Marissa. 

He would be angry because Megatron was dead, Soundwave was still in captivity, and Shockwave was the last one around responsible for tearing his trine apart. 

All three of them were still suffering repercussions of the severance if they were being entirely honest. They would never admit it out loud to anyone. 

But it was Shockwave’s fault. 

The seekers landed on the ground at the bottom of the canyon with an earth-shaking boom. Null rays extended and set to kill. Scavenger and Long Haul came around a large rock to meet them, loudly so as not to startle anyone and avoid getting shot. 

“Where is everyone?” Starscream lowered his weapons, but was still on high alert. 

“On their way.” Long Haul grunted. 

Now on Thundercracker’s shoulder, Marissa could survey the area. While it looked expertly repaired, it was obvious the someone had tried to make it look natural. The rocks were too smooth in certain spots, and overly sharp in other, making it stand out in a subtle way. 

Scavenger was telling Starscream about his findings. “Yeah, the rock changes right around here. The material is completely different down this cave here. It also had signs of recent activity, like someone was trying to dig this cave out a little more.” 

That was annoying. Flight frames were didn’t do too well in tight spaces. Starscream would never admit it in front of anyone though. Thundercracker knew his old leader would take offense if he suggested anything, but he was saved from the evil glare of his when Marissa spoke up. “Well, we need someone to draw anyone in there out. Maybe Optimus can flush them out since you have been patrolling the skies.” The EDC Commander threw the idea out there. 

The Decepticon Lord narrowed his optics and gave her a look he couldn’t decipher. “Yes. Indeed. Once the rest of the team gets here, the grounders will go in and flush them out.” 

Thundercracker tilted his helm towards her and whispered. “Thanks.” 

“No problem.” 

The Aeiralbots finally caught up and landed behind them. Skywarp and Starscream were unimpressed, but Thundercracker turned around and greeted them. “Hey there! We’re waiting for everyone else.” 

The two Autobots gave a halfhearted hello, and began to stare daggers at the Constructicons, who pretended not to notice them. If that got under their plating, they were not going to be in a good mood when the rest of the Decepticons showed up. Perhaps it would be wise to ignore the combiner mind games going on. 

Everyone turned when they heard the sound of crunching gravel. Optimus and the rest of the Constructicons rounded the corner in their root mode since the canyon was too narrow in this area for them to drive through. Scrapper must have gotten a more comprehensive report from Scavenger, because he immediately went over to the cave and inspected it. The two faction leaders began to talk between themselves to form a plan of attack. 

Thundercracker wanted to rush in and get it over with, but knowing Shockwave, that would be very unwise. His fans took on an agitated whine. He was brought out of his thoughts when he felt a hand gently stroke a cable in his neck. Flicking his optics over to Marissa, it looked as though she focused only on listening to Optimus and Starscream’s discussion. It was comforting to know that she was aware he was upset but didn’t make a big deal of it. 

Finally, Starscream turned to the Constructicons. “You will be accompanying Prime into the cave. Keep your comms open and tell me anything that happens.” 

“Yes, my lord.” They replied. Scrapper and Optimus took the lead and headed in. 

All the fliers didn’t speak. They were focused on being ready for the signal. The only sound in the canyon was the ambient humming of their engines mingled with nature. Marissa fidgeted on Thundercracker’s shoulder, doubtful that her position was the best spot for a human at the moment. She tapped on Thundercracker’s cheek and told him to set her down. 

“I’m not sure how long we will stay in this spot. Besides, I don’t want anyone to step on you.” Marissa sighed, and agreed, but sat down and put her boot against a seam to brace herself if they had to move quickly. 

Behind him, Skywarp mouthed off in Neocybex. “You’re an idiot.” 

The blue jet replied in the same language. “For what, caring?” 

“Caring for an organic. Leaving the Decepticons for her.” 

“You know it was more complicated than that. You were there.” Thundercracker put on a stoic face. 

“Starscream offered you amnesty.” 

“See? I knew you were there, because that’s exactly what happened.” 

Skywarp’s optics widened slightly at the sarcasm. It was clear it didn’t occur to him that this would be a touchy subject for Thundercracker too. Thundercracker thought about his decision to turn down Starscream’s offer of SIC often, and wondering what life would be like as SIC. 

“Are you still Air Commander?” He wondered out loud. 

Starscream answered. “I am slowly giving Skywarp more responsibilities. Now that we are repairing the ship, splitting the duties is really the only way to get anything done.” 

“Why are you guys talking like that?” The seekers’ helms snapped to attention when Slingshot asked a question. They had almost forgotten they weren’t alone. 

With a roll of his optics, Skywarp acted like he was explaining the obvious answer. “There’s no reason to speak English on the Nemesis when there’s no humans around. It’s a stupid language anyway. Really inefficient.” 

Their chatter was interrupted when an explosion came from the cave. All weapons came out and the mechs were on full alert. Starscream commed Scrapper, asking for details, then whirled around to everyone. “Get in the air, now!” 

All of them jumped in the air. Thundercracker took just a second longer than everyone else to make sure Marissa was alright and safe in his servo before following upwards. Smoke billowed out of the cave they left behind, but they could still make out figure escaping the entrance followed by several others. 

“Skywarp!” 

“On it!” 

The air where Skywarp was cracked when he suddenly disappeared, and a purple flash in the fog below signaled his reappearance beside the shadowy figure. The purple seeker grabbed the suspect and flew into the air. 

While they had all been expecting Shockwave, none were prepared for it to actually be Shockwave. Skywarp had a sneer on his face that suggested he had a cacophony of awful things he wanted to do, starting with dropping the rogue scientist from the great height they were currently hovering at. 

“I’ll meet you down there in a minute!” He snarked as he let Shockwave fall. 

The three seekers watched him fall for a few seconds in silence before Starscream decided to follow him down. He dove down underneath and rose again with great speed, flipping his thrusters upwards at the last second and landing a powerful kick to Shockwave’s chassis. “You're not getting out of punishment that easily!” His angry shout was loud enough for them all to hear. 

Thundercracker was wanting to get in on the action, so he began a steep dive down to the earth. “This is going to get rough, Marissa. I’m going to put you down. Feel free to shoot at anyone if they get too close to you. Including our allies. Don’t let them step on you.” 

“Gotcha.” She cocked her SMG and rolled out of Thundercracker’s servo when he dipped close enough to the ground. Marissa was close to the edge of the canyon, the only way someone could approach her on the ground was one way or above her, and since Shockwave was the only one she should need to worry about, it made sense to make a stand here. 

Shockwave rotated rapidly in midair, Skywarp and Starscream’s relentless attacks keeping him from landing. What could only be described as a roar was heard from the canyon. Everyone’s surprise was palpable when suddenly Optimus flew out of the crevasse like he was a flight frame himself, trajectory moving right onto Shockwave. They collided midair, with Optimus capturing him in a powerful hold that had Shockwave meeting the ground headfirst. 

The force of the impact still had an effect on Prime, and he was groggily pushed to the side when Shockwave threw a punch to the side of his helm. All three seekers and the Aeiralbots descended and surrounded the grounders. 

Marissa couldn’t see much from where she was standing, but it already looked like things were wrapping up. In the back of her mind, a slightly more concerning question was wriggling in the back of her mind, how did Optimus fly out of the canyon? 

The answer to the question came when a purple servo the size of a house rose up and gripped the side of the cliff side. Marissa whirled around and began to back away quickly, because she knew no matter how powerful her weapon was, it was nothing compared to what was coming out of the Grand Canyon now. She had heard of combiners, and even knew one, but she had never seen them actually combined. Apparently, they were larger than the sum of their parts, because this one should have been much smaller if they were all just stacked on top of each other. 

A huge, visored face stared at her for a moment before he pulled the rest of himself up. Marissa could do nothing but stare in awe as the purple and green combiner stood above her. His voice was almost as loud as Thundercracker’s sonic booms. 

“Shockwave!” He thundered. 

Marissa’s radio crackled when Slingshot accessed their shared comms. “I told you so!” 

It felt like the Empire State Building had come to life, changed to a garish purple and green color palette, and was now marching across the desert. The sheer size of Devestator made even Optimus looks tiny. Marissa couldn't tell what the pile of mechs he was walking towards was doing, but she was sure they would have the mad scientist apprehended by now and the combiner would be superfluous soon. It was going to be a bit of a walk before she got to them, so might as well start heading over now. 

As Devastator loomed over the gathering, Shockwave was currently being held with Thundercracker’s arms hooked under his own while his hands were threatening to crush his head. Optimus had meanwhile regained his bearings and was preparing to barter with Starscream on how to proceed now they had Shockwave in captured. The Decepticons were going to fight to have him punished on their terms, but the Autobots wanted him judged for the humans as well since he had helped MECH and Megatron before. 

“Starscream-” Optimus was cut off before he even began. 

“Prepare to teleport our prisoner to the brig, Skywarp.” Starscream wasn’t even going to think of any other option. 

“Absolutely not!” Optimus interjected. “He must come with us to be tried for the crimes he committed against humanity as well!” 

“Oh, he will be punished alright. He’s a Decepticon, a traitor, and if it so pleases you, I can add that he technically has failed to follow the Tyrest Accord by attempting to share with MECH. But he is coming with us.” 

“We can discuss this after we take him back to the Ark.” 

Thundercracker was surprised how obstinate Optimus was about this, but he wasn’t the leader of anything, so he put on a bored face and held onto Shockwave while the argument continued. He really wanted to get this over with and kill Shockwave now. Suddenly, the captured scientist spoke in a low tone to him. 

“Hard to believe you’re still alive. Working with Autobots, no less.” 

Thundercracker tightened his grip. “Shut up.” 

“Are you as useless to them as you were to Megatron?” 

No one else seemed to hear Shockwave’s taunts. Once again, “Shut up.” 

“Are you still with your human pet? There were so many times I could have taken her from you over these past few years. I wonder what MECH would have done to her if I had delivered her to them?” 

“I said, shut up!” Thundercracker grit his teeth and tried to remain calm, but was still shaking with anger at Shockwave’s taunts. 

And that’s all the purple mech needed. 

Jerking forward, he caught Thundercracker a bit off guard and managed to get to get his gun hand free and pointed it at Optimus. The weapon began to charge up with a screech so quickly that they had very little time to react. Somehow, Shockwave proved quicker than Thundercracker thought when he was unable to change the direction the weapon was pointing in time. Right as Shockwave fired, someone else shot him in the middle of his yellow optic, surprising him and causing his shot to swing wide. 

Towards Starscream instead. 

Time seemed to freeze as Shockwave’s beam pierced Starscream’s cockpit. Glass shattered and everyone began to shout at once. Thundercracker released Shockwave and tore off his gun arm in a small form of retribution, and ran over to Starscream. Devastator roared and grabbed the now limp enemy and crushed him in his hand. 

Skywarp knelt over his fallen lord right as his optics dimmed and blinked out. “Screamer!” 

Marissa, who had just made it to the gathering spot, ran over to Optimus. He stood in shock at the turn of events, and didn’t notice Marissa at first until she rapped on his shin. 

“Faireborn. Did you see what happened?” 

“I did. I was coming over from where TC dropped me off, so when I saw Shockwave try to shoot you, I shot at him to try and make him miss, but...” She trailed off, afraid of the consequences of possibly killing Starscream. 

“I see.” Was all Optimus offered, also uneasy about it all. 

The sound of transformation signaled when Devestator began to break down back into the Constructicons. Shockwave dropped to the ground, nearly unrecognizable now with all the damage sustained. Hook came forward and began to examine him, while Scrapper and the others surrounded Starscream. 

The ‘Con’s leader had his spark casing bared. Shockwave’s weapon had melted the armor around it, but left the actual spark unharmed it seemed. It was a small comfort however, since Starscream still seemed to be within a deep stasis. 

Hook came over after looking at Shockwave for a short time. “Looks like it was a last-ditch attempt to spite us all. Whatever that beam was, it somehow used spark energy, and he put all of his into that one shot. He’s already beginning to grey out. Dead.” He began to push all the others out of the way. “Now move, let me see Starscream.” 

Thundercracker and Skywarp still hovered close while Hook began to clean up the wound. While the middle of the dusty desert wasn’t ideal for Starscream, but they needed to make sure they weren’t going to hurt him further even with a warp. They all were scared when Starscream suddenly sat up, his vents rattling with the force of the air running through them. His optics flickered on. 

“Whoa, slow down, sir. Your spark is exposed.” Hook tried to force him back down. 

“No, we’re leaving now. You can work on me when we’re back on the Nemesis.” 

Scrapper was surprised, “Wait, what about Shockwave?” 

“Leave him. He’s dead now. The Autobots can maybe learn something from his corpse. We have work to do back on our ship anyways.” Starscream got up and brushed them all aside. 

“Starscream, you really shouldn’t...” Thundercracker stammered. 

“Goodbye, Autobots. Thank you for your information, but we are done here.” He signaled Skywarp over, who looked uneasy. 

“Uh, I cant warp all of us back at once.” 

Starscream’s face looked oddly placid compared to how irritated his tone was. “Then the Constructicons will drive and meet us back there. Let’s go.” 

Skywarp looked over to Scrapper and cocked a brow, but with a crack in the air, the two were gone. 

Scrapper looked over at the Autobots, shrugged, and said, “I guess we will be on our way.” The Constructicons transformed and drove off without another comment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people just don't accept the consequences of their actions. Like how breaking up a 4 million year relationship might make someone angry. You know.


	4. A Strange Kind of Restless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm probably very predictable.

Whatever Shockwave had shot him with, Starscream decided it was almost as bad as Megatron’s fusion cannon. The weird thing was, currently, he felt no pain. It had been spark wrenchingly terrible when the beam had hit him at first, but now, nothing. Maybe Hook had shut down his nervous system to help him out. 

But why would he shut down his proximity sensors? He should be able to detect mechs around him, hear something, or even the tell the temperature, but there was nothing. 

That was more terrifying than anything Starscream had ever known. 

His optics didn’t respond at first when he tried to reboot them. A few more tries later, he was able to make out figures in front of him, but it was like he was trying to look at the Nemesis from above the water. Everything was blurry and unfocused. He refused to allow himself to panic, and instead focused energy into his audials to try to get them working again. Slowly, voices began to permeate the strange fog around his systems. They all sounded slow and distorted, but he felt like he was getting somewhere. 

The first thing Starscream could decipher from the voices was Hook announcing Shockwave was dead. At least something had gone right, he thought. With Hook’s next statement, however, Starscream couldn’t help the sliver of unease from piercing his spark. 

Because Hook told him to lay back down. When he hadn’t even moved. His optics finally focused enough to recognize the mechs around him, and his processor nearly overheated with confusion when he saw what appeared to be his own frame standing over him. 

What was happening? 

Starscream tried to reach out and grab the leg of the mech in front of him, but his hand passed right though. Startled, he drew back and looked at his servo. He would never admit it, but he began to truly panic when he realized his servo was grey, and not blue. 

The color of death. 

How could he be dead? He could still hear and see to some extent, and this definitely wasn’t the Well or the Pit. As the figure of himself began to walk away towards what appeared to be Skywarp, Starscream tried to call out to them, or anyone that would hear him. No one seemed to be able to, however, because Skywarp and “Starscream” disappeared, and the Constructicons drove off shortly after. The only ones around him now were the Autobots, Thundercracker and his human. 

He somehow got himself to his pedes and tried to understand his situation. None of what had just occurred offered any clarification. Starscream had just watched what appeared to be himself order his commanders back to the Nemesis, but they had left Shockwave behind. Even if Shockwave was dead, he would want him to be brought back to the Nemesis to be made an example of, so the fact that “he” had ordered the body left to the Autobots made no sense. Maybe he was dreaming and Hook was busy repairing him after putting him in medical stasis. It was really the only thing that made more sense than what he had just witnessed. 

Might as well sit back, watch the dream, and see how all this turns out. Medical stasis would take a while to fix a shot directly to the spark, after all. 

\----- 

The Decepticons left so abruptly, Thundercracker felt like he hadn’t had adequate time to process it all. In the air, it seemed like in the short time they had been flying together, the three seekers had fallen into a kind of understanding with each other, and maybe they would be able to work their way to even being friends again someday. That someday would be a long way off, but it was still an improvement on the whole never talking again situation they were in before. 

While he knew that Starscream could be petty, or change his mind on a whim, the decision to leave Shockwave even if he was dead didn’t make sense. The Starscream he knew was stubborn, and would want to take Shockwave just to attempt to make Optimus and the Autobots angry. Then again, he had just been shot and had his spark exposed, he might have just been in a hurry. Thundercracker still had a few warning bells going off in his processor. 

But it was over. Optimus gave the ‘roll out’ command, so they were on their way back to base where they would debrief and discuss what had happened. The only good thing that anyone could agree had happened was Shockwave’s death, and even that was cause for concern. 

Thundercracker was currently flying with Shockwave’s remains. They had all agreed that they would want to study the weapon that utilized spark energy, so Optimus had called ahead and told Wheeljack to expect a new experiment when they arrived. Hook might have been wrong. 

“I still think Devestator was overkill.” 

“Slingshot, please stop.” Thundercracker was tired of hearing about how Superion would have been better to have around. 

“I mean it! Devestator can’t be trusted. All he wants to do it tear things apart. If Superion was there-” 

This time it was Silverbolt that cut in. “Seriously, stop talking about Superion. I’m sick of the comparison, and I even agree with you! If it bothers you that much, we can all go out for a fly when we get back.” 

Thundercracker tried to tune out the Aeiralbot’s bickering and instead turn his attention inwards towards Marissa. “Thank you for trying to stop him.” 

“Of course.” She patted the side of the cockpit like she would pat someone’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about Starscream.” 

“No, no, don’t be. You did what was best when you shot Shockwave. At least he’s not dead. It is weird he left in such a hurry.” 

“Thank Primus it’s not just me thinking that. Although I can’t blame him for wanting to get out of there with a hole in his chest.” 

When the team landed back at base, a very excited Wheeljack was there to greet them right through the doors. Since Thundercracker had torn his gun arm off, Shockwave had been delivered in pieces, and the Autobot Engineer was eager to get started on this puzzle to deliberate how the weapon worked. He would report to Optimus when he found anything out. 

In the meantime, everyone else retired to their rooms or other activities. Thundercracker still had another few days before he was back on the patrol or training schedule, so he went back his suite and waited to hear some more news. Until Lennox got back, Marissa was in charge of the base, and thus had a boatload of work to do, including updating Fowler and Lennox on the Shockwave situation. She would let him know when she was done. He had some catching up to do on how the base was doing anyway. 

After relaxing in his room for an hour or so and deciding he was bored, Thundercracker went to Prowl to see if he could read up on anything or start writing his training schedule again. He was hoping to get back into teaching flying tactics to the Autobots now he didn’t have a human class sooner than later. Before he could get to the control room where Prowl was normally holed up, his comm pinged, distracting him mid stride. Sideswipe was calling. The seeker was curious what would have him calling. 

“Yo, TC!” As usual, Sideswipe sounded laid-back. 

“Hey there. To what do I owe the honor?” 

“So formal! I just wanted to see how you’re doing now that you’re off radio silence. Marissa tell you where I am?” 

“Los Angles, right? Any luck finding MECH?” 

A grumble of frustration gave him an idea of what the answer could be. “Nah, the only thing we have is some weird signal that travels around the area. Can’t seem to track it down.” 

“Well, I do have some good news for you then: Shockwave is dead.” 

“Frag! I wish I was part of that action. Who all went?” 

Thundercracker relayed the capture and death of the rogue scientist, including how Starscream was shot, and Starscream's actions at the end. “Something just felt... off. Not sure I can explain it.” 

If Sideswipe were there, he would give Thundercracker a friendly slap on the shoulder. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but it’s Starscream! King of grudges! And he just got shot! Maybe there’s nothing more than that.” 

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” He realized he was still standing in the middle of the hallway when another mech passed by. “Hey, I have to go talk to Prowl. Tell Ayana I said hi.” 

“Sure sure. Have fun! Tell Marissa I said hi too.” 

Thundercracker spent the next few hours reading reports in Prowl’s office. Prowl agreed that him and Marissa could be paired back up when Lennox came back from DC. Until then, he would take a few days just to charge back up and get back in the swing of things. 

\----- 

It was the day before he started his base shifts again and Thundercracker was dreaming. Pretty rare these days, considering dreams only happened when your recharge was light or messed up. He might not have plugged in properly since he hadn’t recharged in six days. He was tired. 

In this dream, it was dark, and a void surrounded him. It wasn’t crushing him, but a familiarity was tugging at the corner of his processor, like he was missing something obvious. 

“Hello?” The seeker wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but it definitely wasn’t the void to answer back. 

“Yes, what?” 

Or the void to sound so annoyed. 

“Who’s there?” 

“I think you can answer that on your own.” 

Great. A sarcastic void. Almost as if it was imitating... 

“Starscream?” 

“As the humans say, bravo. I almost thought you had forgotten about me.” The voice had an underlying tone of sarcasm that had Starscream written all over it. 

Thundercracker cranked up his night vision as well as he could in a dream, but still didn’t see anything out in the darkness. “Why are you here? This is a weird dream.” 

“I agree. A boring one. It’s gone on for quite a long time, too. You lead a very underwhelming life now.” 

That was confusing, if not slightly offensive. “I don’t understand. Where are you?” 

The voice of Starscream sounded contemplative. “A lot of this is a blurr, but I believe we are in your habsuite. With that human of yours.” 

“Her name is Marissa. And she’s in a late meeting, so she’s not here right now.” 

“Yes, yes. Whatever. They all look the same, but she just showed up. I watched her come in.” 

Why would this voice insist on this? Although it wasn’t unlike Starscream to insist he was right. “This dream has a very realistic version of you. Somehow more realistic than the one that left us at the canyon.” 

The voice was silent for a klik. “Another one of me, you say?” 

Thundercracker was getting very uneasy. This was like talking to the actual Starscream, and this dream was getting very real. He tried to wake himself up so he could try to get some recharge, and as he floated towards consciousness, he heard Starscream snark. 

“Good talk. See you soon.” 

The sleepless seeker opened his optics slowly, and then jerked upwards into the sitting position when he saw what appeared to be someone else in the corner of the room, someone very familiar. As he focused on where the mech he thought he saw was, however, it just disappeared the more the stared at it. It left him feeling very unsettled. 

“TC, you OK?” 

He turned to look down on the little bed that Marissa was in, wrapped up in a blanket with an open folder, probably concerning Skywarp’s energon demands. She must have come in after she was done with work. It bugged him that dream Starscream had been right and she was in his room, but he was happy to see her. “I... thought I saw someone else in the room. I guess I was just imagining things. Might have plugged in too shallow or something.” 

Marissa chuckled. “Do you need help plugging in? You haven’t recharged since you got back, you have to be tired.” 

“Yeah. Yeah. Please.” 

She came up the makeshift stairs on the edge of his berth they had made and went around his helm. “Alright, grab a hold of it and I’ll help you lead it in.” 

He could feel himself slipping back down into recharge right after he plugged in. Marissa came around, trailing her fingers over his helm’s vents comfortingly. She had brought a blanket from her bed with her and settled down on his chassis. “I’ll see you in the morning.” 

“Yeah,” he slurred, “see you in the morning.” 

This time, when the dark figure of the mech in the corner reappeared, Thundercracker ignored it. 

He would feel better when he woke up again.


	5. Headaches

It felt like it had been forever since he had a decent recharge. Which was strange, because Skywarp had fixed the short in his recharge cable in his suite on the Nemesis, so Starscream had been able to recharge pretty well this past year or so. He enjoyed the slow drift to the waking world, savoring the feeling of safety and contentment. 

Wait. Total contentment was nowhere near being achieved, but being leader of a faction he had patiently bided his time for was very satisfying. But safe? No. Being leader just made him a bigger target, and only Skywarp was trusted. So why did he feel like this? 

Before he onlined his optics, he became aware of a small sensation traveling down a cable in his neck. It was pleasant, and the feedback from it made him want to relax. 

Except it was not normal to wake up with someone touching his neck! 

Starscream let out a yowl and sat up quickly. Something must have been wrong with his processor, because he immediately blacked out. 

On the brink of wakefulness and sleep, Marissa had positioned herself beside Thundercracker’s helm early in the morning. She had gotten uncomfortable on his chassis, and knew that his neck was a bit softer, so now she was drowsily stroking one of the cables as she woke up. Convincing herself to get up completely wasn’t going well. 

Until it was. 

Thundercracker woke up violently and with a yell. If Marissa had been totally asleep, she would have slid off and onto the floor. That situation sounded awfully familiar. 

As it were, she just had enough wherewithal to grab hold of the cables in his neck to keep herself from flying away. Thundercracker made a choked, stuttering sound like a vehicle not getting enough gas. 

“Marissa? What’s going on?” She was gripping his cables pretty tightly and it was starting to hurt. He offered his hand, and she let go to fall back onto it to stare up into his face. 

“You tell me! I was just waking up, and you sat up so fast you almost threw me off!” 

He flinched as thought about it. “Primus, I’m sorry. I’m not sure what came over me. The first thing I remember is you waking me up because you shouted at me.” 

Marissa adjusted herself on his hand. “Maybe you’re thinking too hard about some stuff.” 

“Yeah, maybe.” The seeker looked rattled, and she wasn’t sure why. “Is it time to get up yet?” 

Marissa huffed, blowing a stray hair out of her face. “Yeah, pretty close. We have about an hour before we have to be anywhere.” 

Thundercracker slowly began to lay back down. “Do you think if I lay here long enough I will become one with the berth?” 

“Nope. Responsibilities won’t let you. Besides, who else is going to wrangle the Areialbots?” 

“Let Prowl do it. He doesn’t like me anyways. His opinion won’t change if I skip work.” 

In the end, Thundercracker left a little early to get some energon before his shift as he was expecting to fly a lot today. Marissa made a quick call before heading out herself. 

“Any news about you finally coming back?” 

“Not yet. I’m no politician, so I’m trying to take things slow. Make sure we’re not missing anything that could bite us in the ass later.” 

“I’m sure Ironhide is thrilled.” 

Lennox groaned. “All he wants is what’s best for any that come to Earth now that travel is about to be possible, so he’s willing to wait, but he won’t stop talking about how much he hates politics. He’s at least happy he doesn’t have to be forced into alt mode all the time.” 

On the other side of the call, Marissa sighed. It had been months since Fowler requested Lennox join him in DC to argue alien immigration policy. Everyone knew it would be a long, drawn out debate, so Optimus sent his own trump card with them: Ultra Magnus. He knew Cybertronian laws inside and out, and was wise enough to discern if senators and representatives were trying to take advantage of him. Unfortunately, I didn’t mean they still didn’t try. Lennox spoke as head of the EDC, who had worked with them and offered experience, but really didn’t see why they wanted him there. Probably to just try and confuse everyone by attempting to trip him up with testimonials. 

Marissa had been left in charge of the EDC base. She was willing to run the base since her partner had been assigned elsewhere, but what she really wanted was to get back to tracking MECH down. Especially with Shockwave taken care of. So now it was just waiting for Lennox to wrap things up in DC and come back. 

It had only been a week since Thundercracker had returned, but she was itching to get back in action, and leave all the talk and paperwork behind. 

“Hopefully this won’t take much longer.” She said. 

“You know how these people work. Bills take forever to pass, and an unprecedented one? Magnus might be talking to a whole new government before they decide on anything.” 

“God, in that case I’d almost feel sorry he's basically immortal.” 

They laughed for a bit thinking about that. Now that Shockwave wasn’t an issue, everyone was feeling more comfortable. Maybe this would even speed up the process Lennox and Magnus were in. Who knows what those old men wanted to hear from them. 

“Well, let me know if anything changes. I really don’t want to keep arguing with Prowl on this stupid base extension anymore.” 

Marissa hung up and finished gathering the files she had brought with her last night, left Thundercracker’s room, and locked it behind her with her pin number. Like she mentioned to Lennox, Prowl was expecting her. They were trying to build more habsuites for any incoming Cybertronians, but it now had to be built on the outside of the mountain to avoid making the land around unstable. They weren’t sure how many were coming to Earth, but they knew some would now that Optimus had been able to reach out into space with their communication system fully repaired. No one had answered their hails yet, but it was only a matter of time until someone did. 

“Why do I always have to be in charge of these plans? I’m an enforcer, not a construction worker.” Prowl had the usual sour look on his face as he complained. 

“Well, maybe if you allowed, perhaps, a Constructicon here, we could get this over with faster!” Marissa wasn’t willing to trust all of them in, but maybe one could help. She had talked to Prowl about it before. Besides, Optimus wanted them to ‘build relations’ with the Decepticons, and this past year had proven some could play well with others. While the Constructicons were by no means non-violent, the fact that they were technically part of command would mean they would have to grin and bear it, especially if it meant less Autobots would be coming back with them to Cybertron. 

But no. If there was anything that Marissa had learned these past few years, it was that Prowl liked being obstinate. So here they were, staring at blueprints, listening to funding options, and overall just being miserable in each other’s company. 

Marissa would immediately request to get out as soon as Lennox got back. 

\----- 

It was well into the afternoon when Marissa finally escaped Prowl and went back to her office to work on the shipment to the Nemesis. When she booted up the datapad, there was a message with an attached comm frequency waiting for her marked important from someone she was not expecting to ever hear from directly. 

Skywarp was requesting that she call him at her earliest convenience but offered no specific reason other than it had to do with the shipment. It mystified her. He had never made an effort communicate with her, in fact, he seemed to actively try to avoid her at every turn. 

This call was going to be an argument, she could feel it. She decided to just get it over with and pressed the call button. 

There was no video feed when he picked up, so it must have been a direct line to his personal comms. A voice in a relaxed, sing song manner said something in Cybertronian when he answered. 

She paused for a moment. “Uh, this is Faireborn.” 

“Fair- oh. What do you want?” His voice immediately went flat. 

“What do I want? You’re the one who contacted me!” 

“Slag, I did do that, didn’t I?” 

Marissa began to pinch and rub the bridge of her nose. “Yes, you did. You said you wanted to talk about the next energon shipment?” 

It took a few moments before she heard a grunt of affirmation. “OK, so, Starscream said we need an increase starting next shipment.” 

“Why?” 

“We’re going to start testing the engines.” Skywarp sounded displeased. 

“You guys said on last call you weren’t in the testing phase yet. What changed?” 

She didn’t get a response besides angry mumbling. Whatever changed, it was making Skywarp very unhappy and he didn’t like talking about it. 

Marissa wasn’t going to let it go. “Look, I can’t sign off on something like this unless you give me something to tell my superiors and Optimus. Especially since it’s costing more and more to synthesize and distill energon.” 

“Tell them to look at our last report.” 

“We have, because that’s how we determine to the amount we need to send you next time. If you want more, we will have to find another source.” 

Skywarp vented, which she recognized as the equivalent to a resigned sigh. “I know.” 

That wasn’t the response she expected. “You know...?” 

“Yeah. Look, I’ll keep in touch. Just save this comm frequency to your phone. I’ll talk to you later.” 

Marissa didn’t even get to say any form of farewell because he hung up right after that. Her brow furrowed and she tapped her fingers on her desk as she thought. It was mystifying why he would even reach out to her if he wasn’t even prepared with a better answer than that. 

In the end, he had said Starscream told him to ask for more. Whatever the Decepticon Lord said, goes. Marissa typed a note on the day of their next meeting to remind her to ask Starscream about the jump in the repair timeline. Hopefully he would shed some more light on his request. 

\----- 

After Skywarp hung up, he finally left himself stop working on the anti-gravity turbine. After a few klicks of standing perfectly still, he punched the wall next to him. Starscream was not going to be happy when he told him the EDC didn’t agree to send more supplies immediately. The purple and black seeker ground his denta angrily thinking about the ridiculous requests Starscream had been making recently. He was working as hard as he could! The engines weren’t magically going to be repaired any faster unless Primus himself came down and replaced the whole thing. 

The Decepticon SIC stepped back and stared at the back of his servo. The paint transfer could be excused as his work on the engine, and the dent on the wall as a mistake. He couldn’t let the others know he had been angry. The other seekers were watching at all times. While Starscream and Skywarp hadn’t made public knowledge of their severance due to the side effects, they knew everyone else suspected. 

Any failure would be scrutinized. No matter how small or large the task, a failure was unacceptable. The rest of the Decepticons out there in the universe would probably join or revolt based on how they did here on Earth. 

Skywarp hoped that Thundercracker still thought this was all worth it. At least it ended the war down here on Earth, but there was no telling what would happen beyond that. 

He wanted to leave. He wanted to leave Earth, the Nemesis, this engine room. But there were others out there. Others that were always watching. It was best if he just stayed in here where the machinery wouldn’t know the difference between him and anyone else. 

Right now though, his conversation with Faireborn had backfired, and would probably be brought up in the next meeting. Meaning the next shipment would still have the same amount of energon. It didn’t matter, honestly. They wouldn’t be able to use that much in the engine anyway. 

Skywarp couldn’t help but feel uneasy about Starscream’s demands. He didn’t know why. 

Blaming his feelings on his lack of trine link, Skywarp shook his servos to loosen them up, and turned back to the engine. Might as well get as repaired as possible to make it up to Starscream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you love it when you're in charge and most of it sucks?


	6. You Make Me Think Of Someone Else

If there was one thing that Thundercracker never envied Starscream for, it was the paperwork. Keeping track of the armies, training, supplies, everything that came with being an SIC. He shuddered to think of Skywarp in the position. How Starscream held the seekers together as Air Commander, did his duties as Decepticon Second, and still had the time to scheme against Megatron was a mystery to him. 

It’s not like Thundercracker didn’t do any of Starscream’s work. As one of the Elite Trine, there was always plenty to do. Including the work Skywarp hated that somehow was inevitably pawned off onto him. When Prowl was looking to assign duties to Thundercracker after he got off his Autobot probation, it was the seeker himself that offered to teach the Autobot flight frames tactics and maneuvers. They were the only flight frames on Earth, and jumped at the chance to be taught by a seeker. 

The only problem: the adjustments. It was difficult teaching some moves to non-seekers. Half of the time Thundercracker was flying with them to test their abilities, and the other half was making sure they could even fly the way he was trying to teach them. Even after fixing the flight plans, sometimes he would have to go back and adjust it further. 

Silverbolt had done wonderfully and continued to enforce practice while Thundercracker was gone undercover. Currently, they were all in the air reviewing the maneuvers he had left them with. The blue seeker hovered midair in his root form, watching and making mental notes. Fireflight was drawing his attention, however, with a strange dip down with every right turn. 

“That one is relying too much on his left wing.” A voice to his left commented. 

“I know.” Thundercracker answered. “A bad habit that probably means-” 

He did a double take when he actually looked to his left. He was expecting perhaps Silverbolt making that observation, but realized not only was said mech flying in front of him, he would not have referred to one of his gestalt as ‘that one.’ To his surprise, there was no one there. He held on to the last few words of his sentence in his mouth before muttering to himself about getting his processor checked. 

The next time Fireflight flew by, Thundercracker motioned him over. “When’s the last time you got the sensors on your ailerons checked out?” 

“Uh.” He looked a little nervous. 

“That long, huh?” 

Fireflight avoided his stare. “Well, Ratchet said that if I let it happen again, I’d get the wrench.” 

“What happen again? How many times does this happen to get Ratchet to say that?” 

A shell-shocked face stared back into Thundercracker’s. Whatever ‘it’ was, it was embarrassing. “Uh, uh. Well, you know how ailerons have a lot of sensors?” 

The jet had to stop himself from sounding sarcastic. Of course, he knew. “Yes...” 

“And grounders don’t really know how much they matter in flight?” 

“I - Are you saying someone did this to you?” 

Fireflight was fidgeting. “Yes, but on purpose.” 

“In real battle, that’s fine. It’s what everyone is trained to do. But if someone purposefully hurt you, in sparring or some time else on base, and causes you to underperform -” 

“We weren’t sparring.” 

A second or two passed between them. At this point, Thundercracker had a feeling he didn’t really want to hear much more, and Fireflight definitely didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Ah. Well, hate to say it, but you still need to go to Ratchet and get that fixed.” 

Fireflight nodded vigorously, saluted, and dove down more quickly than Thundercracker had ever seen. He let the others know that they would be continuing their exercises without Fireflight today. 

Later, while at his desk writing out his reports, Prowl approached him. Thundercracker was used to having those with actual rank lording it over him and trying to make him do what they wanted, but Prowl never took that approach. If he asked you a question, you can be sure he already knew the answer and was just testing you. If he ordered you to do something, he already had a failsafe in place and expected the outcome. Prowl knew everything that was going on, or at least anticipated everything. 

So when Prowl opened with, “Skywarp wants more energon next shipment.” Thundercracker was sure Prowl was looking for a connection between them. 

“I’m not a part of the shipments. That’s you and Commander Faireborn’s job.” 

“Strange he would call Faireborn and not bring it up at the meeting next week.” 

That got his attention. “He called her directly?” 

“Yes, claimed they were going to start testing the engines.” 

Thundercracker frowned. “I’ve only been back a short time, but from what I’ve heard, that’s really quick.” 

“Precisely. Why would he say that then?” 

“You make it sound like I know what he’s thinking. I’m sorry to tell you, but I don’t.” 

“You were with them for a long time.” 

The blue seeker rubbed the side of his helm, “And now I’m not. I can’t help you on guessing his motives. All I can tell you is that Skywarp isn’t known for pranking lightly, or doing an important job halfway. He knows what he can get away with. He’s either joking to a whole new degree, or trying to destroy the Nemesis. Neither sound like him. That’s all I can say.” 

Prowl looked over the seeker with a stoic look on his face and an angry look in his optics. He didn’t get the answer he wanted. “Very well. I’ll remember that.” 

After Prowl left, Thundercracker let himself bang his fist on the table twice. No matter how many times Ratchet and Optimus back him up, Prowl still wouldn’t just leave him be. He understood that he was an ex-’Con, but one would think that a successful year undercover with humans would maybe convince some that he was trying to help. Even Sunstreaker was warming up to him. 

He vented, reminding himself that two years was not a long time. For humans, a lot could happen in two years, but for Cybertronians, they could be taking their sweet time on something and not be worried about it in two years. The jet was around humans a lot now, and more used to the quick and vicarious way they lived due to their short lifespans. He couldn’t expect Prowl to understand that, or forgive him so quickly. 

Just another day here on Earth, full of grumpy mechs that just want to go home. 

\----- 

While not a part of the energon supply meeting, Thundercracker convinced Prowl and Optimus that he join in on the next meeting because Marissa’s strange call from Skywarp, and that he might be able to see some tells on the seeker than would give them more information. On the condition that he stay quiet, they agreed. 

Usually Marissa would let Prowl and Optimus deal with the meeting by themselves, but she too wanted more answers. 

They all took their positions around the meeting table, and called the Nemesis. The monitor showed the video request was sent, but no one picked up. They tried again, and this time, it was Scrapper who picked up. 

“You’ll have to wait a second.” He grunted. “Starscream is on his way in.” 

Thundercracker was confused, Starscream was only late on purpose to make someone stress. There was no one here that he could benefit from that. In fact, it would make everyone here less trustful, especially since he had asked for more energon. Prowl would automatically assume the worst, Starscream knew that. 

This meeting was already making him worried. 

Finally, Starscream came strutting in followed by Skywarp. He sat himself in front of the camera stiffly. “Hello, Prime. I was under the impression we didn’t need this meeting, as we have already received our answer.” 

Optimus cocked his helm, “Answer? To what?” 

“Why, the refusal to send us more energon, of course. Your little human already told us you weren’t going to be helping us.” 

Thundercracker had been told about the conversation between Skywarp and Marissa, and knew that wasn’t an entirely true statement. Marissa angrily started at this. “I said no such thing! I said I would need a good reason to just suddenly increase the output!” 

The expression of Starscream’s face didn’t change, nor did the cadence in which he delivered his next line. “Do you not trust we would put it to good use?” 

Prowl spoke up. “Say we do, we still don’t have enough to send off without spending more Earth money or finding it ourselves. Like we said last time, we need another resource already. You seem to have conveniently forgotten that.” 

Optimus stood, “Please, friends. Calm down. We can find a middle ground.” He turned back towards the screen. “Skywarp, how much more are you needing?” 

Thundercracker began to watch Skywarp carefully. The purple and black seeker looked as professional as he could, but his wings were positioned a bit lower than normal. He was nervous. 

“Well, the engine will need an extra burst to get us through the ocean surface. We need to get out of the ocean to repair some hull breaches that wouldn’t survive space. This will use...” and went on with a bunch of numbers that supposedly proved they needed more fuel. The whole time, Thundercracker focused on Skywarp, but near the end of his report, he flicked his optics over to Starscream, and choked on a vent. How had he missed that before?

Optimus and Prowl gave each other a look. Marissa wrote something down. Skywarp’s wings flicked in anticipation. 

Finally, Optimus Prime look back at the monitor. “With this new information, it makes sense you would request more. We only ask that next time, you go through the proper chain of command. We will figure out how much more we can spare, and whether or not we can begin construction on a solar power plant.” 

“You do that.” Starscream waved his hand almost flippantly. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we will be working on the Nemesis. Our way off this dirt planet.” 

There was silence in the meeting room after the Decepticon leader turned off the video feed. They all turned towards Thundercracker. 

“Well, everything check out?” Marissa asked. 

“I... I’m not sure. Skywarp was acting really weird, anxious. Not much does that to him these days. I hate to say it, but maybe the numbers he gave us weren’t completely true. The only thing I can think of that would make him like that is ruining our chances to leave here. But what concerns me most of Starscream.” 

“Starscream? Why?” 

“He’s never late, so that’s odd. And also, his optics are yellow.” 

“So? There are plenty of mechs with yellow optics out there.” Prowl raised his voice a little to draw attention to the fact. 

“No, but there’s a reason Breakdown still has a patch on his face. Optics are in extreme short supply; we don’t swap them out unless both optics are done for. Either Starscream is being even more selfish than usual, or he lost both optics recently. Either way, something big happened.” 

\----- 

Acceptance of the status quo was never Starscream’s strength. The old Cybertron? Corrupt, overthrow it. Outliers shunned? Why not recruit them to the Decepticons? Optimus Prime winning? Can’t have that, the seekers won’t let it happen. Megatron lost his touch? Kill him, take his position. The present was never good enough. It could always be more in his favor. Shockwave had been just one more hurdle he cleared. 

Which is why Starscream found himself having trouble believing this wasn’t a dream. It certainly felt like time passed as it should, instead of quickly like flashes in a bad recharge. If this wasn’t a dream, then that implied there was something else wrong, something else brought on by a gunshot. Not terrible enough to be the Pit, not good enough to be the Well. Some humans had a concept called Purgatory, maybe he was there? Maybe this is what some describe as his life flashing before his optics? 

He refused to believe he wasn’t alive. There really wasn’t an option he could consider that went down that road. But these dreams were feeling very real, and never seemed to end. It had been intriguing at first, but now it was wearing him down. There was work to do! Hook needed to hurry up and finish his repairs so he could continue. Starscream never wanted to just watch Thundercracker do reports and make up flight maneuvers. 

Sometimes he was able to get a reaction out of Thundercracker. He would make comments on something that was around, and his ex-trine mate would look around like he was really there. That was odd. 

The meeting that just transpired was like a nightmare. Something was up, and dream Starscream was acting terribly. Anyone who knew him would be suspicious. 

Dream or otherwise, no matter what this was, it needed to end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brain: Time to write!  
> Me: Great, can't wait for this chapter.  
> Brain: No not that.  
> Me: What? But this is the next chapter.  
> Brain: I want to write scene X.  
> Me: But that takes place a while from now...  
> Brain: Well, I don't want to write anything else.  
> Me: Fine. I guess this chapter will just have to wait a little bit.


	7. Remaining Calm Before the Storm

“I’ve had just about enough of looking for a phantom.” Ayana groaned dramatically. 

It was dusk, and the clouds were making the buildings seemingly glow orange as the dying sunlight hit the structure’s glass. It reminded Sideswipe of Iacon sometimes, but as they drove further out of the city and the tall buildings no longer surrounded them, the nostalgic feeling was replaced with acceptance that he was on Earth. Los Angeles wasn’t the worst place to be stationed. Yeah, it was boring, like Ayana reminded him all the time, but it could be worse. 

“MECH’s no phantom, they’re out there, and we’re gonna find them.” The Autobot reassured his partner. “At least, they better be. These colors look awful on me.” 

When Sideswipe and Ayana had been transferred to work with the police force in Los Angeles, it required some form of undercover since MECH would be wary of anything out of place. Like, a flashy red Lamborghini acting like a cop car. Sideswipe had flat out refused reconfiguration, but couldn’t escape the black and white color scheme of human law enforcement, much to his chagrin. Prowl had even laughed at him. 

So here they were. Nearly nine months into trying to track down a signal that disappeared every time they got close. Even if it wasn’t MECH, something was here, and that something didn’t want to be found. 

The team lived a bit north of LA proper. Close enough to make it into the city in case of an emergency, far enough to have an EDC funded house with a large enough garage for Sideswipe to lounge in root form. 

As soon as the garage door closed, Sideswipe flipped onto his feet and gave a theatrical stretch that caused his joints to groan along with him. Ayana patted his shin before heading inside to get out of her uniform. The lambo sat down on the floor and picked up a datapad to review any news that was sent to them from HQ. Not surprising to him, there was trouble with Starscream. 

“So shocking.” He murmured sarcastically to himself. 

“What’s shocking?” Ayana was coming back down the stairs into the garage with a water bottle. “Has something finally happened?” 

“You’ll never believe this, but Starscream is being disagreeable to everyone!” The look of exaggerated astonishment on his face matched his exaggerated tone of voice. 

Ayana snorted, trying to keep water from coming out of her nose. “Oh wow, you’re right, I never would. Is there at least something in there more believable than that in the news?” She hadn’t had much experience with the new Decepticon Lord, but had heard many stories about him. 

“Optimus says they’re going to try and scout out an area for solar power. Starscream needs more energon for the Nemesis, and is being an aft about it.” 

Ayana rolled her eyes. “Where are they thinking of building it?” 

“Probably around here. Cali likes using solar energy after all.” 

“Think we’ll get assigned guard duty?” 

Sideswipe shrugged. “Who knows? MECH isn’t going to just out themselves, they might just keep us here until something happens. I’ve had longer assignments.” 

“Oh joy.” 

Unbeknownst to the pair, someone was watching. Not an enemy or a friend per se, but an interested party. They stared from the darkness, waiting patiently for anything to happen that would call for their action. It had been easy to smell the Autobot and his friend when they had first arrived in LA. Easier still to find their temporary base of operations. 

They had the same goal, they were sure of it. The downfall of MECH. But it seemed like the Autobot team was having the same trouble pinning down what was surely a signal sent out by MECH. What the signal was for, no one was sure. No matter what it was though, their time to strike would come, and they would savor the revenge that would come with it. 

\----- 

THUMP. 

Marissa looked up from her vegetables, knife poised to stab instead of chop now she had heard something that she was definitely not expecting. Another noise confirmed it was coming from the garage. She carefully went over to the door, and listened. There was a strange rustling coming from inside. The redhead counted to three, and swung the door open, holding the knife in front of her. 

A tall figure stood in the dim light that came from the room behind her. She wasn’t able to identify it, but it looked blocky and appeared to have no arms. It had restricted movements, and squirmed like it was being squeezed. 

“Stay where you are!” Marissa put on her most assertive voice. She was taking no chances. This would-be criminal would be going nowhere if she had anything to say about it. 

“Wait!” A muffled plea came from where the head would be. “It’s me!” 

She paused for a moment and watched the figure struggle until a familiar face popped out of the neck hole of what was now obviously a sweater. “The sleeves are inside out for some reason!” He cried. 

Marissa lowered the knife with a snort. How did this man survive as a human? He still was having trouble with shirts. The sweater he was currently struggling with didn’t actually have the sleeves inside out; he had somehow put the shirt itself on inside out, forcing the sleeves inside the shirt. Even his pants that were too short spoke of his inability to understand clothing. Marissa had to put the knife on the counter behind her for fear she would drop it while she was laughing so hard. “Goddammit, Thundercracker. Give me a little warning before you pop in like that! How did you even get in here?” 

“I put my holoform and some spare clothes in the back of your car before you left today. I told you I would meet you back at your place when I was done!” He looked as indignant as a man trapped in a shirt could. 

“Yeah, but I was sorta expecting you to show up as yourself.” 

“You live in the city. That would be a bad idea.” 

“Well, I... that’s true.” Marissa turned around to go back into the kitchen. “Come on, I’m making dinner.” 

The mech in disguise wiggled out of the treacherous sweater to properly put it on as he followed her inside. Thundercracker’s holoform when he wasn’t undercover looked mostly the same as the one he first used around her, the only real differences being he didn’t try to hide his inhuman strength, and his irises were a dim, glowing red. When he was Josh, his eyes had been a regular brown. Marissa had mentioned the red eyes before, and he had given a long-winded explanation that had basically reduced to, “The basic coding of the holoform had red optics because we weren’t sure what human eye colors were at first.” 

It also seemed he enjoyed the unease his slight inhumanity spread to those around him. 

Thundercracker sat down at her table while she returned to preparing her meal. With a flick of his wrist, a small cube appeared in his hand. He took a few sips and watched her begin to sauté the now cut vegetables. 

“I’m glad you brought that; I don't think I have enough food for you too. I need to get some groceries.” 

“I already refueled back at base; this is high grade.” Thundercracker tipped the cube back again and gave dramatic gasp as he put it back down.

“Then I guess I’m already behind, huh?” Marissa left the stove and grabbed a beer from her fridge. 

It was already promising to be a relaxing weekend for them. Two blissful days without thinking of politics, Prowl, or the EDC. After she finished eating, Thundercracker wanted to watch TV to further distract them from their work. Marissa didn’t care what he put on, she wasn’t going to pay attention anyway. 

As they sat on the couch, slowly letting the alcohol soak into their systems, their worries seemed to drain away. Most of them, anyway. Thundercracker was sitting upright so he could set his cube on the end table, and Marissa’s legs were draped over his while she leaned against the other arm of the couch. When the book Marissa was reading stopped making sense, she put it down to just rest her eyes. In what seemed a few seconds, Thundercracker was shaking her. 

“It’s not even 11 pm, you can’t sleep on me yet.” 

“I wasn’t sleeping, just thinking.” She mumbled. 

“Uh huh. What about?” 

There actually was something on her mind. She didn’t actually want to dwell on it, but the alcohol continued to make her obsess on it. “Are you worried?” 

“About what?” 

“Starscream. Not much good has been said about him lately. Even from you.” 

Thundercracker scratched the back of his head, uncomfortable with the line of questioning. A lot of mechs and people alike were treating him like he was hiding something. Marissa hadn’t really questioned him about any of Skywarp and Starscream’s strange behavior, but Prowl and Jazz sure had. They wanted to be sure that he had no contact to the current command of the Decepticons. He may be on their good side, but he wasn’t trusted completely yet. 

“I... I’m not sure. He's always been secretive. Now that I’m not trine, there’s a lot I’m not privy to.” He wanted to give Screamer the benefit of the doubt. “If Skywarp is just nervous about fixing the Nemesis properly, it’s understandable, even if they made good progress suddenly.” 

Marissa poked his chest with her foot. “You’re not just saying that to me to make me feel better?” 

“No. I won’t ever lie to you.” 

“Good to hear. Now, get me another beer. I’m empty.” 

“I will when I finish this episode.” 

“You can pause it at anytime!” She began to jab him over and over with her foot. “Haven’t you seen this before?” 

He swatted her foot away. “No! You’re just not paying attention! This is obviously the next season!” 

“That just means it’s repetitive and boring!” 

“I think if you watched it you’ll find it has a good story and relatable characters!” 

“Stop watching stupid hospital dramas and maybe I’ll watch something with you!” 

Marissa was asleep. This time, Thundercracker let her be and continued to let the TV play in the background. To the untrained eye, it looked like he was zoned out and staring at nothing, but he was actually rewatching what he remembered of the meeting the Autobots had with Starscream. No matter how he looked at it, Starscream was off. It was not the Starscream that had sent him off the Nemesis two years ago with a promise to lead the Decepticons off Earth. The Starscream that spared him when all others would have shot him on the spot, especially the late Megatron. Starscream was never above lying to get his way, but what he was lying about wouldn’t get him to his goal without losing a valuable ally with fuel and the best chance to leave Earth. 

He didn’t like thinking about it too much. Having to work with the seekers wasn’t good for his severed trine link, and Thundercracker was feeling stressed from any sort of contact with them. 

He reached over and ran his fingers through Marissa's hair a few times, savoring the feeling. He knew he was never the safe choice of partners, in the romantic or professional sense. These few moments of perceived normalcy would always hold a special place in his spark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter. Work is kicking my ass.


	8. The Proverbial Straw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dammit I didn't mean to not update this for a whole month. Sorry.

Doubt was creeping in.

Was this the Pit? It was feeling more and more like it with every day that passed. To forever suffer being unheard, unseen, and watch everything he worked for unravel right after holding power for just long enough to give him a taste of victory. The only way this could be worse was if Megatron was stuck in this nightmare with him.

Starscream glanced over his shoulder out of habit at the last thought. It would absolutely be possible for Megatron to somehow return just to torture him more. It had happened before, and for all he knew, it could happen again. Thank Primus for that one favor, but no dead warlord seemed to be stalking him for now. He was alone.

He was mostly alone. If he could count the Thundercracker that he seemed to be joined together with. While his ex-trinemate went about his day, Starscream seemed to be compelled to follow him throughout all the mundane tasks that his life now consisted of. It was becoming increasingly frustrating being forced to do nothing but snark to himself as the blue seeker worked, and gag when he was around his human obsession.

Forever trapped in this limbo, this strange veil, hoping this was a bad defrag was a truly terrible way to spend eternity. The Decepticon Lord didn’t recharge, refuel, or even feel anything around him. The sensory deprivation was getting to him. When he saw Thundercracker power down and move to his holoform, an overwhelming loneliness came over him. He was alone, and no matter how many millions of years of trying to distance himself to protect from personal ties, this incorporeal existence was becoming too much. The seeker threw an angry, desperate claw at the wall of Thundercracker’s habsuite.

And made a mark.

It made him draw back in disbelief, and then examine it closer. He had touched the something that wasn’t himself. How had he, when he couldn’t touch anything before this? There had been moments where Thundercracker and him had seemingly interacted, but never had been physically in contact.

While the mark on the wall on shallow, there was no mistaking it for one made by his sharp fingers. He had made many scratches and dents on many different places.

That scared him. If this wasn’t the Pit, and was somehow reality, it was more horrifying than any hell could ever be.

\-----

Marissa resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Lennox’s comment, “They want Optimus to come up and speak to them.”

“Of course they do. Anything to stall longer.”

“Well, they latched on the Tyrest Accord and what ‘they could be hiding,’ and now want something in return for officially allying with Cybertronians. Of course, Magnus isn’t having it.”

“Lovely. So they basically want Optimus to make them an offer?”

“Sounds about right.”

Fucking politicians. Thinking their thinly veiled plots were going to get them what they want. The trouble was, it probably would. Until the Nemesis was off Earth, humans, especially the US Government since that was where they were currently holed up, was more than able to twist the Autobot’s arms to get what they want. If it cut off their ability to gather energy, Washington knew Optimus wouldn’t resort to violence.

So now Optimus needed to plan a road trip. Who knows how long it would be until he would be able to hand the arguments back to Ultra Magnus and come back to base?

“Is there anything we can do right now?” Marissa huffed into the phone.

“Unless you have a magical way to get Optimus here right now, not really.” She could almost hear Lennox rolling his eyes.

“Well, we can fly him over there. Superion could get him there real quick.”

“Jesus, I’m sure he would. But he would also attract attention we don’t need.”

A plan was brewing in her head. “There is someone who could get Optimus to you faster than a drive.”

With Prowl and Jazz left in charge, Optimus was ready to depart. Marissa and Thundercracker planned on only staying until the following day after making sure they knew a rough idea of how long Optimus would be there. When Optimus was strapped in and Marissa was settled into his seat, Thundercracker fired up his thrusters and set a course for DC.

“This won’t be as fast as I usually fly.” Thundercracker warned. “It will take a few hours to reach DC.”

“Better than the few days it would take traveling by road.” Optimus commented.

“And the sooner you’re there, the sooner you can argue with the politicians!” Marissa quipped.

A groan came from Optimus. “Indeed.”

They were met at the Washington Dulles Airport, where Ironhide and Lennox had cleared out a large area to receive the party.

Optimus detached from Thundercracker as he slowed during his decent and hit the runway. The Autobot leader ran up to Ironhide and greeted them with the usual niceties. Thundercracker transformed a little closer to the group, sending a powerful gust of air over them. “Hi everyone!”

Marissa looked a little windblown in Thundercracker’s servo, but unfazed. “OK, we’re all here. Is Congress going to meet with Optimus today?”

“That’s the plan. Sunstreaker and Magnus are back at the Capitol waiting for us.” Ironhide jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

“Then let’s get going.”

There was a gigantic, white tent behind the Capitol building that served as a temporary meeting place for those too large to actually enter the building. Security was everywhere, and Sunstreaker was there at the front as an extra measure. Thundercracker caught a glimpse of Ultra Magnus as Optimus entered the tent.

Marissa and Lennox went into the actual building to discuss a few EDC topics, leaving the mechs outside. Thundercracker and Ironhide weren’t officially part of the meeting, so they stood a little ways away from the tent, waiting for news on anything.

There was a protest out in front of the building. There often was, almost always anti-Cybertronian protests, angry the US was even entertaining the idea of allowing the aliens to live freely in their country. Some even tried to push the conspiracy theory that the Cybertronians were a secret government experiment that wanted to spy on everyone with their alternate forms. Either way, there was always an angry crowd ready to argue with anyone that tried to talk to them.

It had only egged the mob on when Sunstreaker got angry after a particularly brave man had attempted to slash his tires and key his doors on evening. The people had stood back, but didn’t disperse as Sunstreaker transformed and stood up. They continued to scream at him to leave, he didn’t belong, or that he was just a robot. Ironhide recognized the signs that Sunstreaker was losing his temper, ran over and held him back right as the lambo twitched towards the crowd. Ironhide, Sunstreaker, and Ultra Magnus had learned to tune it out after a while out of necessity.

Thundercracker had to learn as well. When on the Cannon Airforce Base, there was always talk about the aliens on Earth. It was new, exciting, and terrifying. Everyone had something to say about it. The seeker had to hold his glossa to avoid being found out or start arguments. He eventually was able to discuss Cybertronian presence on Earth while sounding objective. After all, he had experience with others shunning him for his frame type already.

Hearing the frothing hate as he stood waiting for Marissa and the others to return was a lot. The humans at the base were often at least wary, and at most excited about having an alien race around them, but this group reminded him the reason MECH was able to get away with anything. No matter what these people’s views were, they would want MECH to dismantle the Cybertronians before making any peace with them.

“We don’t want your war!”

“Humanity doesn’t need you!”

“Harbingers of the end!”

All shapes, sizes, and beliefs were present. None of them were easy to listen to, and it never seemed to end. Thankfully there was a fence separating them.

Starscream had been watching with mild interest. Humans could get riled up easily, and it was amusing seeing them try to comprehend what his race even was. Now that the initial wonder was over, however, and some more information about Cyberton was coming out, there was a good portion of humanity who was anti-Transformer. And they were getting bolder. Thundercracker had more patience than him. They were lucky that he was unable to physically touch anything or be heard, because he would have shut up the angry mob with a flick of his servo.

At some point, a young man climbed the fence and ran over with a stone. The moment the rock bounced off Thundercracker’s leg armor, the man shouted for his attention.

“Hey!”

The seeker didn’t answer, opting to instead just turn his helm to look at the human with as blank a look on his faceplates as he could muster.

The man didn’t seem to expect any reaction and stumbled back, but quickly gathered his nerves again. “We won’t stand for the evil you’re bringing to Earth! Haven’t you killed enough?”

Nothing he hadn’t heard before, but something was different this time. The seeker felt his systems heat up, his null rays gathering power as if he was getting ready for a fight. He tried to just turn away and ignore him, but as his wings hiked up and back defensively, he turned more fully towards the accuser.

They say that bravery could also be another word for stupid. While Starscream considered this statement to be true, he felt like humans were mainly stupid. This insect just ran up to Thundercracker spouting angry accusations and assumed he would remain alive. Of all the seekers, this creature was lucky it wasn’t Starscream standing before him, because even if it was just a human, it sent a streak of white hot rage down Starscream's struts.

The humans knew only a surface history of his race, had only seen Megatron’s work on Earth, and their government was being difficult working with the Autobots. If they wanted them off Earth, then humans needed to stop opposing themselves.

How dare they. Forgetting momentarily of his fear that this wasn’t real, Starscream stepped forward to address this human. If Thundercracker wasn’t going to say anything, then Starscream would.

Something was wrong. His systems weren’t responding. He tried to shut down his battle protocol, walk away, comm someone, anything, but nothing was working.

Thundercracker found himself crouching down, bending over and caging the young man against the fence he had so bravely jumped over just moments ago. He felt a crooked smirk cross his lips, showing his denta just a little.

His spark felt like it stalled when he heard his voice, unbidden, come from his mouth.

“You speak as though you know us. I was unaware that you were privy to our entire history. Please, tell me more of how it is the Transformers who will bring about your end. Or wait, perhaps you can tell me how humanity has maintained its eternal peace that you have always had? It might be useful, for we are nothing but killing machines at best, trying to rebuild might be too difficult.

“Or, you could remember you are no better than us. Remember you are organic. Remember we are in fact, superior to you organics. I shouldn’t be surprised at this sentiment, though. You can’t even accept other humans, so why would you want to accept us?”

He felt nothing but satisfaction when he saw the man was shaking. The man screamed one last challenge, “You can’t control us!”

Starscream chuckled. “Oh, but I could if I wanted to. Mostly, I want to leave your miserable planet. Until then...” He reached over and pinched the metal fence behind the man, causing it to buckle as easily as paper. “You will wish to avoid me.” He pushed the fence into the ground next to the human and smiled threateningly.

The man let out a terrified yell and ran through the hole in the fence. Thundercracker stood up, confused. None of what happened made any sense. Why had he gone off on the stranger?

“Thundercracker!” Ironhide was running over. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know!” He tried to respond.

But what came out was a quiet, dangerous question. “Thundercracker?”

When Ironhide called him Thundercracker, Starscream halted. He realized he had interacted with the human, with the fence, and now Ironhide. He paused, feeling the wind on his wings, the heat of the sun on his face, and the softness of the dirt below his pedes. It was nearly too much after being unable to tell the difference between his strange limbo and reality. He looked at his servos, his paint color, his location. Now that he was thinking about it, he could even feel Thundercracker in his mind as if they were still trine.

Overwhelming, and exhilarating.

There were a few loose ends Starscream had to tie up.

Ironhide halted, nervous at the expression on Thundercracker’s face. “Are you alright?

The blue seeker felt a manic grin form on his face. “Am I alright? I might be. Perhaps not. I have a few questions, but not for you.”

Thundercracker didn’t know what was happening, but he reached down and grabbed the metal fence against his will and ripped it from the ground. Only a portion of it came up before it disconnected from the rest, but it was enough to make Ironhide back up when he twirled around and hit him across the helm. All his battle systems were online now.

The jet tried to process anything. It was like someone was controlling his frame, but it was someone who really knew a seeker’s frame. The null rays were primed, but kept down. His engines were active, but still idling.

“What’s going on?” He tried to shout.

“I’m taking over for a moment. Sit back and let me figure this out.” Came an answer.

He was going crazy. His severance finally had pushed him over the edge, because now he was hearing Starscream back in his head.

“You haven’t gone crazy, yet. You are, however, stuck with me for the time being. Shockwave must be taken down once and for all.” Starscream acted like it made sense.

His body reared back for another attack on Ironhide. Realizing that if Starscream really was with him somehow, this might seriously hurt the Autobot. Thundercracker forced his fist to miss at the last second, throwing himself off balance to land on his knees.

“What are you doing?” Starscream was angry.

“I’m avoiding making it worse!” He snapped. “If this is really happening, then everyone will think it’s me that short-circuited!”

“Then you leave me with no choice but to force you to submit!”

Starscream knew Thundercracker and Skywarp’s minds and how they worked. While a trine was unable to take control of the other like what was happening now, they became intimately familiar with each other’s processors. Something Starscream was taking full advantage of as he forced Thundercracker into the passenger seat of his own mind. This was not normal in any fashion.

“Shockwave will not get away with this attempt on my life. You will help me finish what we started.”

“On your life? What are you talking about?” Fear was welling up, allowing Starscream more reign over Thundercracker’s mind as the latter lost focus.

Starscream didn’t answer. Once again, Thundercracker felt his frame advance.


	9. Meeting of the Minds

Whenever the Cybertronians finally were going to be able to leave Earth, it would leave the question, what if some stayed, or some more came back? 

What if there are other aliens out there worse than Earth’s current visitors? 

A space force eventually was going to be necessary. 

As of now, the EDC was going to be the defense if/when something unwelcome did visit Earth. While they were currently developing weapons and tactics to deal with such invaders, Faireborn and Lennox weren’t stupid enough to realize it would be more difficult without help from the Autobots. Or even some Decepticons that might want to stay behind. No matter how loudly Prowl complained, he recognized humans were ill prepared to face any other creatures the galaxy had to throw at them, and had begun to collaborate with others to make an initial team to stay behind at first. 

Major Lennox was behind on such plans. The calls with Faireborn kept him mostly up to date, but only so much could be conveyed over the phone or video. Like the workaholic that she was, Marissa had brought some files and folders on the trip to DC to kill two birds with one stone. 

“I don’t know why they put me or you in charge of this if Fowler’s rules are so constricting.” Lennox squinted at the proposal and the subsequent notes said agent had put on it. 

“Starscream will just have to deal with smaller shipments until we get another source in. It will take time and money to build a solar farm. We don’t have much of a choice.” 

“So we are definitely going with solar?” 

Marissa shrugged. “Looks like it. It’s one of the only things Optimus could get Starscream to consider, and Wheeljack already ran some tests that suggest it’s easier to turn that energy to energon. We just need to find a spot to start.” 

Before Lennox could respond, a loud explosion came from the outside. Faireborn and Lennox jumped to their feet and watched security agents rush out towards the exit. The screech of metal-on-metal crashing together made them realize that not only was there fighting, it was a battle between Cybertronians. 

Marissa tried to call Thundercracker. “TC! What’s going on out there?” 

He didn’t respond, so she tried again. A fight was distracting, maybe he couldn’t answer the first time, but her partner still didn’t pick up. 

Shit. This was serious. “We need to get out there now!” 

“Right behind you.” Lennox agreed. 

Before they made it outside, Optimus called her, “Faireborn, you better get over here.” The urgency in his usually calm voice was even more cause for alarm. 

“We’re already on our way. Who’s attacking us?” 

“Thundercracker.” 

That had to be a mistake. Maybe there was some other seeker that had gone rogue. Thundercracker wouldn’t just snap and begin to trash DC. 

She hung up without acknowledging what the Prime had said and turned to Lennox. “That was Prime. We need to get to the front of the building ASAP.” 

Lennox didn’t question her directions, but asked, “What’s going on?” 

“I’m not sure.” 

Ultra Magnus met them on the steps outside. It was worse than she thought. 

The lawn was covered in deep grooves, and the damage to the buildings already looked extensive. The fence in front of the Capitol was torn from the ground and in pieces everywhere. Ironhide and Sunstreaker stood in front of the tent that held the politicians with Ironhide looking a little worse for wear. Thundercracker appeared to have gone completely feral, looking like a cornered animal as Optimus tried to talk him down. They were talking in hurried Cybertronian, with Optimus looking more and more confused the longer they conversed. 

Finally, the Prime had enough of whatever was being said. He swapped to English, “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Let's just get back to Faireborn, and you two can head back to base.” 

Instead of answering, Thundercracker activated his thrusters and shot over the Autobot’s head. When he landed behind him, two glowing, orange swords appeared in his hands. He gave a low growl, “I’m not interested making sense to you. Where is Shockwave?” 

Marissa was stunned. Firstly, unless this was a joke gone too far, he knew Shockwave was dead. Secondly, Thundercracker never pulled out his swords. All seekers had them; they were standard issue. The downside was that it took energy to pull them out, and Thundercracker had admitted to preferring fighting hand to hand to using his swords when in close quarters. Everything that was happening was so out of character it actually scared her. 

The air made a _whoosh_ as the swords swung, and Thundercracker began to advance on Optimus. For someone who claimed to hate using these weapons, he sure could use them with finesse. Every swing he took was graceful, even beautiful, and dangerous. He knew what he was doing with the weapons in his hands. 

Right now, it looked like Prime was calling for backup. He was doing his best to avoid the swords, and there were several slashes on his armor from where he had to defend himself at the last second. The pale energon seeping from the clean incisions on his frame stood stark against the green grass. Sunstreaker ran in with slightly recovered Ironhide in tow. That just seemed to make Thundercracker angrier, and he took a more aggressive stance as they advanced. Sunstreaker was the first to recognize the form, and jumped away with a warning shout. “He’s gonna shoot!” 

The sound of the null rays buzzing announced the first shot. The swords slowed down to let the null rays aim, but never stopped completely. Anyone that got too close still was in constant danger of being cut open, and someone who wasn’t close enough was left open to a blast from his rays. 

In one fell swoop, Marissa was shown and the Autobots were reminded why the seekers were the elite guard of Decepticons. 

And that Thundercracker used to be one of the most dangerous ones. 

With renewed caution, the three Autobots began circling the seeker. The swords glinted in the sunlight as Thundercracker burst towards Ironhide. As the sword descended, Ironhide shot towards his wings, trying to cripple him. With a flourish and a twist, the bullet whizzed over his shoulder and the sword landed solidly across Ironhide’s forearm. Sunstreaker and Optimus tried to take advantage of the footwork and get behind the seeker, but his null rays had a wide range and shot Sunstreaker in his knee joint, causing the golden lambo to fall to the ground. 

“You’ll have to do better than that!” Thundercracker gloated. His voice rang out across the courtyard. Marissa couldn’t help but notice he sounded different. His voice was a pitch higher, with a desperate ring to it. The blue seeker finally noticed Ultra Magnus standing on the steps next to the EDC commanders. 

No one was sure what was happening, because a moment later Thundercracker slumped, arms went limp and fell to his sides. He looked up suddenly, optics flickering back and forth between shades of red, an awful grimace on his face. The pain was apparent in his expression when he reached up and pulled a black box out of his subspace. The seeker then reared back, and threw it towards the building. 

Magnus crouched low over the humans in case the box was coming towards them specifically. Marissa recognized the flying box as Thundercracker’s holoform container, which confused her. It seemed like a random thing to just take out and throw. A still forming fist came through the top of the box when it landed, solidifying into the human hand of the physical holoform. 

He stumbled over to Marissa, who didn’t know what to expect, and held up her SMG in case he was still aggressive. 

“Marissa...!” He choked out. 

That tone was definitely the Thundercracker she knew. Marissa ran forward and gripped his arms as he swayed. “What’s going on? Why are you attacking us?” 

He seemed to be having trouble focusing. “’S not me. Need help.” 

“What do you mean?” She shook him a little. 

The sound of jet engines starting up behind them drew their attention. Sunstreaker tried to jump on Thundercracker before he took into the air, but the damage to his leg slowed him down just enough, and the seeker was flying away before anyone could stop him and hold him down. 

His holoform’s face drew into a scowl trying to focus on the message he was trying to convey to her. “No time to talk! It’s not me! Starscream, gotta talk to Starscream. Help him! It’s not who-” Thundercracker must have gotten out of range finally, because the holoform collapsed after his eyes rolled back into his head. Marissa caught it on instinct before it hit the concrete and slowly set it up against the closest wall. It wouldn’t be relaying any more information. 

Lennox came up from behind her after seeing him fall. “What’s going on with him? Why did he suddenly come at us?” 

Marissa stared down at the dead like man. “I don’t know. But now we need to talk to Starscream for more answers.” 

\----- 

The whole time Optimus was trying to talk to them, Thundercracker was just trying to figure out how Starscream was in his head. And how he was the one in control of his frame. 

“What have you done to me?!” He cried internally. 

Starscream wasn’t even trying to pretend like he was listening to Optimus Prime anymore. The attack on Ironhide had brought Optimus running. The line of questioning that followed confused both the host seeker and Autobot leader. Thundercracker couldn’t tell what his old trine mate’s goal was, but he could tell it had something to do with Shockwave. 

“What did Shockwave shoot me with back in the canyon?” Was his only answer to Thundercracker’s pleas. 

“What?!” 

“Who’s leading the Decepticons now? How am I here?” 

Nothing he was saying was making sense. Did he think another mech had inexplicably take his place? Thundercracker felt a surge of energy in his servos as his swords materialized, powerless to stop Starscream’s rage becoming manifest. 

After forcing the Autobots back, his optics wandered, taking in the damage done. He felt Starscream’s satisfaction in the forefront of his mind at having “won” this round. “You’ll have to do better than that.” He heard his vocalizer say smugly. Before Starscream decided to do anything else, Thundercracker noticed Marissa in his peripheral vision. 

Maybe she could help! Or at least get out of Starscream’s range before he turned his anger towards her. 

With renewed energy, he reattempted to force himself back in control of his frame. Starscream wasn’t expecting such determination, and for a short klik, relinquished his hold on his processor. Starscream wasn’t happy with his actions, and before he could tell Marissa what exactly was happening, he lost contact with his holoform. 

A few hundred miles and an open field later, Thundercracker decided now was the safest and best time to try to stop Starscream from making a major mistake. Pushing himself to the forefront of his processor, he began to try and disrupt his thrusters to force Starscream to lose altitude. Only the right thruster fully gave out, causing him to spin out midair, making Starscream transform into root mode in an attempt to catch himself when they crashed. Dirt and small trees flew everywhere when they landed roughly on the ground and thrashed against the other’s consciousness. 

“Where do you think you’re taking me?!” Thundercracker struggled to be the main controller of his frame. 

“Back to the Nemesis to kill Shockwave once and for all! He won’t get away with wearing my frame and sitting on my throne!” Starscream snarled in his head. 

Thundercracker began manually locking his limbs to stall Starscream from going any faster. “In case you’ve forgotten, _you are me._ There are mechs back there that still wouldn’t let me back inside the ship without shooting me on sight!” 

“Let them try!” 

“No! What if I don’t return like you and just die?” 

The struggling ceased for a moment and left them face down on the ground. Thundercracker caught flashes of thought going through his processor that weren’t his, and realized he could ‘see’ Starscream thinking. There was a sliver of a doubt running through his mind instead of pure rage, giving the possessed seeker a blissful respite from the headache. 

“It is true I haven’t seen any others like me during this time. I thought perhaps it was because few had died here on Earth, but Megatron hates me too much to not follow me in the afterlife.” Starscream mused. 

“Yeah, and, if I went to the Nemesis and they didn’t somehow kill me immediately, and I began spouting that the mech they believe to be their leader is actually a deceased scientist, they might just assume I’ve gone crazy from the severance and kill me anyway.” Hopefully that was contention enough not to go charging off. 

After a klik of consideration, Starscream commented, “You’re panicking.” 

“No slag, I’m panicking! I somehow am being puppeteered by my ex-trine leader, who in turn tried to kill the Autobots that have assisted me, and now I have to convince said seeker not to charge off recklessly!” 

“Don’t be ridiculous. If I wanted to kill them I would have been much more thorough. Fighting three and killing none is a bad percentage.” 

A moment passed, letting Thundercracker puzzle on what dimension he was in to hear Starscream attempt to be the one to calm him down. Perhaps he could be reasoned with. 

“If I sit up and get my face out of the dirt, will you swear not to try and run off?” Thundercracker asked warily. 

“...Fine.” Came the exasperated reply. 

Joints creaked as he unlocked and loosened them up. Sitting up, Thundercracker shook his helm and blinked, unsure if he was still a passenger inside his frame or the one in control. For now, it seemed like it was him. There was a strange flicker in the back of his mind he assumed was Starscream. He was trying to make sense of all this first. 

“How are you here?” 

Starscream chuckled. “Maybe Unicron didn’t want me, because I _know_ Primus didn’t.” 

That might have been amusing at any other time, but right now, Thundercracker needed answers. “When you say that Shockwave is you, what do you mean? He disguised himself as you?” 

“No, I’m not sure how, but I saw myself walk away after Shockwave shot me in Nevada. At first I thought it was a dream, but it is obvious now that someone was piloting my body. Besides Bombshell, there’s only one other mech I would suspect: Shockwave.” 

“That’s... kind of farfetched.” 

“So is being fragging dead!” 

“Dead?! Why are you even with me?! Why didn’t you go with Skywarp on that day?” 

“I couldn’t move for a bit after I woke back up! I missed him!” 

“Then travel to the Nemesis yourself!” 

“I would have, but I only just now realized this was reality!” 

Thundercracker paused again. “Just now?” 

“Yes.” Starscream was thinking again. “Once I accidentally merged with your frame, and felt the world around once again, I realized this was no illusion, and someone out there was pretending to be me.” 

“Sounds like an awful lot of denial.” 

“You would be in denial too if you woke up after what was supposed to be a fatal shot!” 

Thundercracker could feel himself slipping the angrier Starscream became. The whole time they had been talking, Thundercracker had been talking aloud because he was unsure if Starscream could hear him through the comms, making it look like he was just talking to himself in the middle of a field. In an attempt to calm Starscream down before he went too far again, he sent the image of himself talking to nobody to the foreign flicker in his mind. It calmed down slightly. 

“You look ridiculous.” 

“You’re not exactly accessible by comms, so I didn’t think to make it look like I was talking to somebody.” They shared in the small humor in the situation, but quickly returned to the solemn reality. Again, they sat silently. There was going to be a lot of work to do here pretty soon. 

Where did they even start?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I use this fight as an excuse to give Thundercracker some swords?  
> Maybe.


	10. To Seek A Seeker

This was a disaster on so many different levels. Fowler was going to demand answers where there were none to be had. Optimus also had nothing to offer, only able to say Thundercracker had seemed normal up until he wasn’t. Nobody knew what was going on, and nobody was able to tell where he went. 

This wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if he had gone on a rampage anywhere else besides in front of Congress. The uproar of the protests were twice as loud now they felt like their stance had been justified, causing law enforcement a lot of trouble trying to keep the mob back. The congress men and women had been cleared out, leaving the Autobots, Marissa, and Lennox inside, waiting for Fowler to come talk to them. 

Marissa stood at attention, not as a soldier, but like a prisoner waiting for her death sentence. This would not be a good time. 

When the front of the tent opened, revealing a stoic looking agent, it felt like everyone stopped breathing for a moment. Well, those that did breathe. 

“Optimus.” Fowler began. 

“Fowler.” 

“Care to try and explain to me what this shit show I walked into is?” 

“Not even I am sure what this is. He’s never given us a reason to suspect he would turn on us.” The Autobot Leader was trying to give the seeker the benefit of the doubt. 

But Fowler wasn’t willing to let that fly. “You mean you _never once_ thought that a former Decepticon would change his mind? Would take advantage of your trust in him?” 

This argument drew Marissa in, even though she knew she should probably stay quiet. “There was no contact between any of the Decepticons and him without it being in an official capacity!” 

Fowler whirled around with a snarl on his face. “You have no dog in this fight! Because your dog bit us and ran! Not only are you his partner and acting commander of the EDC, you two have something strange going on!” 

“A relationship is not strange.” Marissa knew that wasn’t the point, but she was stressed. 

“Dammit, Faireborn. You’re just digging yourself into a deeper hole. It’s already making the DOD antsy even having you around in case you’re an accomplice.” 

“What?!” 

“You’re the handler of an ex-Decepticon, and in a position of power in the EDC. You volunteered to bring Optimus with Thundercracker to Congress, the latter of which began attacking the guards and said Autobot Leader. Wouldn't you agree that sounds suspect at the very least?” 

Yes, she would have to agree. She could be tried for treason or attempted murder if the story was twisted enough. Marissa ground her teeth, frustrated that no apparent at way out was coming to mind. 

With a sigh, Fowler backed up and faced the group again. “Congress had adjourned until further notice. The topic of Cybertronian citizenship or immigration is suspended for now. As for you two,” he looked over and Lennox and Faireborn. “Lennox is effectively reassigned to the Autobot base. Until we can figure something out about this situation, Faireborn is suspended.” 

“Suspended?!” Marissa sputtered. 

“As in, can’t work right now.” Fowler gave her a hard stare that told her that decision was final. “You’re lucky we don’t court martial you.” 

“We have to talk to Starscream first.” 

“You mean _Lennox_ has to talk to Starscream. I heard that Thundercracker told you to give him a call, but you’re not going to be a part of that conversation.” He gave a side eye to Faireborn. “Strange that the aggressor would point to the Decepticon’s involvement in his attack.” 

There was really nothing left to say. If Marissa tried to interject, there was a chance she might dig a bigger hole for her and Thundercracker. Optimus began to make plans to return to base with everyone else in tow, and Marissa was told that while she would be staying on base, she would have no privileges, and would effectively be a civilian. 

Faireborn would have to learn how to work with that, because the chances of her sitting back and letting this play out without her were zero. 

Traveling back to base took longer than arriving, because now they had to arrange for transport for the group of mechs that were previously stationed in DC. They all drove back single file with minimal talk between them. Drawing attention to themselves after such a fiasco was the last thing they wanted, so the convoy was loaded up into a cargo plane in the middle of the night. By the time they took off, it had been nearly six hours since the incident. The ride back was long and slow, but Marissa was unable to sleep. As soon as they touched down, Optimus, Ironhide, and Lennox moved towards the control room to make the call to Starscream, and Prowl escorted Marissa away. 

She was forced to hand over her weapons and all the cards that authorized her to move about the base freely. Prowl was none to gentle laying down the law with her, what she was and wasn’t allowed to do. Remembering how she acted when she first arrived on base a few years ago, they even gave her a curfew and told her the door would lock behind her until morning. Her options of leaving and taking matters into her own hands were dwindling rapidly, and Sideswipe wasn’t around to break her out. 

She laid back on her bed, trying to think. How could she be expected to do nothing when Thundercracker had begged her for help? How was the talk with Starscream going to go? Where did TC go? 

It looked like Prowl hadn’t shut down her personal datapad and phone yet, so the redhead scrolled through any reports she could, trying to find any new news. While it was obvious that Fowler had been busy trying to hide as much of the attack as possible, America already was discussing how dangerous Cybertronians were and ways to get rid of them, no matter how absurd the suggestions were. 

The Autobot’s hands were tied, Optimus had to keep the peace. So there was probably no help to be had from them. The Decepticons wouldn’t help; Thundercracker had been sure they still hated him last time they discussed them. She had only ever seen him interact with two Decepticons, and they had been a trine for millions of years. 

Marissa sat up suddenly. Maybe there was one mech that might be willing to help. The flight over the Grand Canyon had been eye opening, revealing some form of comradery still lingering between them. Starscream was out of the question, but what about Skywarp? 

He might not like her personally, but maybe he would do it for TC. The ex-commander picked up her phone to check that his comm channel was still saved, took a deep breath, and called the Decepticon SIC. 

\----- 

Fingers strummed on the dashboard of the computer impatiently, making many mechs look over with irritated looks on their faceplates. The only thing that kept them quiet was that Skywarp outranked them, he could kill them and get away with it. He knew this and took advantage of the fear that came with the power of being SIC, a wonderful relief during this time. 

Starscream hadn’t been back on the Nemesis for three days, leaving Skywarp uncomfortably in charge. The purple and black seeker wasn’t built for command, and was getting more antsy the longer Starscream was gone. He had refused to let Skywarp accompany him as protection, even though he had been shot by Shockwave recently. He hated it. It all felt wrong. Scrapper was fine, burying himself in ship repairs as an excuse not to deal with anyone unless absolutely necessary. 

Speaking of, Scrapper was hailing him on the comm now. Skywarp’s optic twitched, really not wanting to talk with anyone right now, but forced to out of official obligation. :What?: He snapped when he picked up. 

:You need to see this.: Was all the Constructicon offered as an answer. 

The file he sent was of a human news report labeled, “Cybertronians Attack Again!” That wasn’t a good start. He had no patience for filler, so he fast forwarded the video through the talking heads until it reached the actual subject. He sat forward in his chair with his elbows on his legs and his chinguard in his folded hands when he recognized Thundercracker. He carefully kept his face as blank as possible so as not to alert any of the surrounding mechs in the command center. 

This was very bad. 

:How long ago was this?: Skywarp asked after watching the video for a second time, searching for a reason for the outburst. 

:Around half a cycle ago.: Scrapper replied. 

Great, Thundercracker could be anywhere by now. Skywarp continued to sit in the same position, thinking furiously on how to find him or where he might go. Thundercracker lived on the Autobot base when he wasn’t out on missions, so there was no obvious location for him to hide. The best place to start was in the direction he flew off in from DC. From there, if he could guess the speed he was flying, it might give him a clue to progress on. He would be back on the Nemesis in no time with Thundercracker right behind him. 

Skywarp stood, preparing to warp to DC to begin his investigation when he faltered. Why was he looking for TC? He wasn’t trine, he didn’t live on the ship, and he wasn’t a Decepticon anymore, so there was no obligation to help. Especially with Starscream gone right now, Skywarp needed to stay on the Nemesis as the commanding officer. Thundercracker would have to help himself, there wasn’t anything left for him here. 

Primus must hate him, because as soon as he convinced himself that he didn’t need to go after Thundercracker, there was another problem. Skywarp turned at the sound of the main computer ringing, announcing a call from the Autobots. He really should have guessed they would be calling, but with the information he knew now, he was surprised it didn’t happen sooner. 

:Scrapper, get up here. Optimus is calling.: 

:Be right there. Any word from Starscream?: 

:No. Maybe they won't notice the difference between one seeker or another. We’re going to have to _wing_ it.: Even in this dire time, Skywarp had to crack a small joke to keep himself sane. :Now stay on the line until you get here, don’t miss anything.: 

The purple and black seeker turned to the mechs in the command room, flared his wings and put on his most commanding voice. “Out! This is a private meeting!” 

When he answered the call, Optimus didn’t waste any time with greetings. “Skywarp. I was expecting Starscream.” 

“Well, you got me. And Scrapper too, he will be here in a moment. How can we help you?” 

“I am calling specifically for Starscream.” Optimus insisted. 

“He is unavailable.” Skywarp frowned on the insistence. 

“This is important.” 

Skywarp bristled, anxiety creeping in. “If this is about Thundercracker,” he tried to deflect, “I’m afraid we will be no help. I have no idea what’s going on.” 

The Autobot’s camera tilted down to allow a human to take the center of the screen. “In case you don’t remember me, my name is Major Lennox. I was there when Thundercracker attacked. Before he escaped, his holoform came up me and told me to talk to Starscream.” 

The SIC glared at the human. “I've seen the video, and I know you weren’t alone when the holoform talked to you. Why leave out the fact that Faireborn was with you? Surely two witnesses are better than one?” 

Lennox’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Faireborn is unavailable.” 

“So is Lord Starscream.” Scrapper interjected as he and his gestalt entered the room. “I’m pretty sure that Commander Skywarp made that clear. Anything you would say to Starscream you will have to say to us.” 

Lennox looked over his shoulder back up to Optimus with an eyebrow raised, and back to the Decepticons. “You do realize how suspicious it is for Thundercracker to raise hell then mention Starscream, right?” 

“If you wanna say something, say it. We don’t have time to play around.” Skywarp spat out. 

Optimus brought the screen level to his face again. “Very well. The Decepticons seem to be involved in an act of war by working with Thundercracker to get close to congress. We are calling to give Starscream a chance to explain possibly incriminating evidence. If he’s not there, that is not good news for you. Deliveries to the Nemesis have already been suspended.” 

Deception Command mulled over the accusation, and the problems that arose from it. Scrapper commed Skywarp privately. :The repairs on the Nemesis-: 

:I KNOW.: Skywarp cut him off and addressed Optimus again. “We will get back to you when Starscream is ready. Soon.” 

“Please do. Sooner than later.” 

Skywarp ground his denta in frustration when the call ended and dimmed his optics to think. Where was Starscream? This was not a problem that could be solved without him. When Skywarp became the SIC, Starscream told him he wouldn’t leave him alone like Megatron often did to him. Not because he didn’t trust Skywarp, but because Starscream knew his strengths laid elsewhere. What a joke that turned out to be. It was like Starscream never knew him. 

An angry fist slammed into the computer dashboard. The Constructicons shuffled nervously behind the seeker, all unsure of what the next step would be. 

“I’ll be in my habsuite.” Skywarp stomped off. 

When he reached his door, his comms went off again. Thinking it was Scrapper yet again, he answered the call with a “What do you want?!” 

There was a beat of silence on the other end, then a confused reply from someone he couldn’t place immediately. “Uh, Skywarp?” 

It clicked a second later who this was. “...Faireborn?” 

“Yes, it’s me. What are you doing?” 

That threw Skywarp off. What kind of question was that? “What are _you_ doing calling _me?_ I was told you were ‘unavailable’ at the meeting.” 

“Well,” she drew out the word in an uncomfortable manner. “I am, and I find myself kind of backed into a corner. I need a favor.” 

“That so?” His tone was dubious as he finally entered his quarters to get some more privacy. 

“I need you to break me out of the Autobot Base.” 

Skywarp halted mid step, and then began pacing as he talked. “Sorry, I thought you just said you need me to come get you out of your own base.” 

“Yeah, that’s about it.” 

“Well, that’s a dangerous request. And of all the mechs you know, you called me.” 

A sigh came from the other end. “Wasn’t my first choice either. But let me explain! You know about Thundercracker, obviously, but that affects me too.” 

“Let me guess,” Skywarp’s smirk was almost audible in the way he spoke. “Your bosses don’t trust you anymore and think that you’re part of the problem.” 

“Hit the nail on the head.” Faireborn muttered. 

“That begs the question, why call me? I’m certainly not free from Optimus’ and... what’s his designation... Flowers’ scrutiny.” 

“It’s Fowler, and I know. But you’re the only one that can help me. The Autobot’s need to lay low. The only other one that might be crazy enough to help me isn’t here.” 

“I’m not there either.” 

“Yes, but you can teleport here.” 

“How do you think it works? I just think real hard and I suddenly can just show up? I have to have coordinates.” 

“I can get you coordinates.” 

That wasn’t the point though! “What makes you think I even want to help you?!” 

“Because you want to help TC.” Faireborn sounded so sure of herself. 

The seeker stopped. How could she possibly know how he felt? At first, he wanted to refuse her just so he could prove her wrong. But the more he thought on it, the more he felt he understood Faireborn’s position. It wasn’t too long ago he had been too afraid of Megatron to shield Thundercracker from his fury, or do anything but make excuses. 

Compared to Megatron, this was nothing. Starscream could complain all he wanted, but he would never be scared of him the same way he was of the old warlord. Skywarp owed Thundercracker at least a little attention, even if he wasn’t trine anymore. 

“Fine. I can’t leave right now, but I will soon. Send me the coordinates to where you want to meet me, and we will figure things out from there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No dumb government rules can keep me from looking for my boyfriend!


	11. Allies, Not Friends

They couldn’t move. 

None of them could see or contact the others. 

After millennia of being connected, it was alienating being kept apart. Radioactivity surrounded their location, keeping any attempt to comm the others from happening, isolating them even more. 

This wasn’t forever. Their chance would arise, and they would be free again. If the war truly was over, and Megatron was dead, it would leave them to do what they will. 

And there were so many things to do on Earth. 

\----- 

It was raining. The surrounding land was rolling fields of now wet plants (possibly wheat) and mud. The house and barn on the edge of the farmland had no lights on, which meant that the people inside probably were in bed by now. Which was a good thing, because while the rain helped mask the sounds of a jet coming in for a quick landing, someone who was awake would still be able to hear the faint sounds of an engine, no matter how much the seeker attempted to muffle it. 

The fugitive landed away from the house, and sneaked up to a powerline as quietly as he could. He pulled out a jack from his wrist and connected it directly to the ethernet cables coming from the house. 

“The more I’m out here the more I’m reminded why we decided to keep our base on the Nemesis than try to establish one up here.” Thundercracker involuntarily shook mud off his pede as Starscream complained. “All the more reason to return home.” 

“Just let me get into the EDC database, and we will get out of the mud. Trust me, I’m not a fan, either.” Thundercracker pleaded. 

After flying around a laying low for a few days, Starscream and Thundercracker had come to the conclusion that they would need to find MECH first. There was no way Shockwave was working by himself for this long. Megatron wasn’t there to back him, and he had no way to access his his lab and materials on the Nemesis. This meant that their old friend Silas was probably supporting him like he had before. If they wanted to get to Shockwave, the best route would be through MECH first. 

And they couldn’t do that alone. Especially since there was technically one of them. 

The voice in his head wasn’t about to let it go, however. “I’m ready to actually be dead now.” 

Thundercracker rolled his optics. “We haven’t even done anything yet. Do you want an ally or not?” 

“This is taking too long.” 

“We just started! I’m not a master of hacking, so it’s bound to take a little while!” 

“Let me do it!” Starscream forced himself in control and took over Thundercracker’s hacking attempt. The little house they found in the middle of nowhere didn’t have a large broadband, so while he was better at hacking, he was force to concede that it probably would have taken Thundercracker around the same amount of time to find the database they needed. 

“Why do you insist on being in charge? I know the database!” The host jet fought halfheartedly against Starscream just to annoy him. 

When they finally began to crack the code to the EDC database, Starscream let his host back in front. “Alright. Look around.” 

The blue jet began to rifle around the files on the surface, but soon realized that that what he was looking for was bound to be much deeper. “Screamer, can you open the next level for me? Or two? I don’t know where it is. I never had that level of clearance.” 

“Oh, now you want my help.” 

“Get in here. We need to hurry before these people wake up. We’re already killing their internet bill.” 

Thundercracker worked on cloaking their presence (did Starscream even have a presence in the database like this?) while Starscream became the literal ghost in the machine, tearing through security with his eons of experience. After a few more minutes of digging for information, they found who they came for. 

“There he is. They locked him and buried the key, but they wouldn’t throw it away.” The Decepticon chuckled. 

“Will the EDC know I was in here? I don’t want to cause more trouble for Marissa.” 

“Relax. They got your little obsession locked away and suspended.” 

Thundercracker wasn’t very surprised, but now he didn’t know if the EDC was going to get anything done. “Is she ok? What are they going to do to her?” 

“From what I can tell, that’s it so far.” 

Thundercracker’s optics flashed on when he heard commotion coming from inside the house they were at. After quickly but carefully unraveling his wristjack from the powerlines, he began to back away from the house. A light came on in the house right before the door opened. Thundercracker froze, panicking at the thought of being discovered before they were able to enact their plan. He gave a small wave to the stunned human in the doorway. 

“Uh, lovely night out, isn’t it?” The blue seeker had to raise his voice to talk over the heavy rain. 

Starscream groaned in the back of his head. “Fly, you idiot!” 

“Oh! Right!” Thundercracker backed up a few more steps before jumping up and activating his thrusters. He flew away as fast as he could and hoped that person didn’t know who he was or had watched the news recently. 

“You’ve been around humans too long.” The grumble in the back of his head came tinged with disapproval. 

“Just... point me in the right direction. Where are we going?” 

“They have him hidden under a nuclear waste repository. A cute little place in Nevada called Yucca Mountain. It looks like Prime has been working with the humans for a lot longer than we knew.” 

“Why hide him there?” Thundercracker hadn’t heard of this place, nor that the Autobots had made any use of it. 

“From what I could tell, the Autobots are able to actually dispose of the human’s nuclear waste faster than them. It was a win-win situation for everyone.” 

“I mean, it seems a little risky to hide a Decepticon prisoner around such a destructive source.” 

“Well,” Starscream chortled, “we will just have to be careful when extracting information. Now, on to Yucca Mountain!” 

\----- 

The seeker circled over the long mountain in a lazy orbit, trying to do some reconnaissance before diving in. If this place was built with Autobots in mind, specifically Prime, there had to be a Cybertronian entrance. There was no way their kind could fit inside the obvious tunnels. After a few more loops, both were getting agitated that it wasn’t making itself obvious yet. 

Thundercracker felt Starscream’s annoyance bleed into his own attitude. “I know they wouldn’t make it clear cut, but we’ve been hiding on this planet for over thirty years! You’d think we would be better at recognizing an us sized entrance!” 

“Just follow the roads. They’re grounders, they’re in disguise, so they’ll need to get in by a road. Look harder with that in mind.” 

He had to admit, Starscream’s logic made sense. Another trip around the mountain revealed a small track running beside the mountain. It wasn’t well used, so it didn’t stand out very well. It looked like a promising lead, so the seeker dipped down as silently as he could, landing lightly at a strange intersection in the middle of the road. The intersection seemed to lead into the side of the mountain for seemingly no reason. 

“It’s here somewhere.” Thundercracker mumbled to himself as he turned his optics to thermal imaging. 

There was a large, circular seam cut into the rock that was a little warmer than its surroundings. 

“Awesome. This is it. Now, we need to hack in to give me clearance or hide our visit -” Thundercracker was cut short as Starscream took over and dug his fingers in the door and began to pull. 

“Neither of us are familiar with this database, so that’s going to take too long. They’ll notice us before we can do that. Let's get in and get out.” 

With a loud shriek, the door began to give. It was meant to keep humans out, but it clearly wasn’t expecting Decepticon intervention. Most likely an oversight on the human’s part, because Prime was more paranoid than that. 

The door finally swung open with deep groan, revealing an empty tunnel before them. No one was expecting them, and the seekers weren’t sure if any alarms had been set off. They set off down the dimly lit hallway, trying to stay quiet while hurrying. It ended at a large elevator with the only option leading down, so down they went. 

The ambient creaking of the cables and the sound of machinery overheard was the only sound the seekers could hear. If there were other mechs here patrolling, they were being very stealthy. 

When the elevator doors opened, they were surprised to be exactly where they wanted to be. “Prowl must have designed this. He wouldn’t want to spend any more time in here than he had to.” Starscream mused. 

There were two hallways of holding cells were right around the corner. Thundercracker carefully scanned the first hallway, and found their only obstacle was two patrol drones in front of what they supposed was their target. 

“They’re pretty confident in their stasis cells, aren’t they?” The blue seeker commented in his head. 

“Good for them. Take out those drones and let’s get down to business.” 

The echo the hallway gave back was deafening when the drones crashed to the ground after Thundercracker shot them. He stood still, listening for any backup coming. Instead, an eerie voice came from the cell they drones had been guarding. 

“Amusement: I was not expecting a visit from you, Starscream.” 

Thundercracker and Starscream were both confused for a moment, the latter taking over to ask, “How did you know it was me?” 

“Starscream: Has forgotten who I am so quickly.” 

Starscream walked forward to stand in front of the cell where Soundwave was being held. Even though the combination of the stasis cell and stasis cuffs prevented him from moving, it did not mask Soundwave’s surprise when he saw Thundercracker instead of the expected Deception Lord. Starscream’s dark red optics stared out from a face that wasn’t his. 

Thundercracker’s lips twisted to a classic Starscream sneer as he crossed his arms in front of his chassis. “As you can see, both of us are in a complicated position. Who you see before you is both simultaneously Thundercracker and myself.” 

Soundwave stayed silent for a moment, taking it all in. “Query: why are you here?” 

“Ah, it feels so good to confound you. Short story: an experimental weapon made by Shockwave removed my spark and somehow anchored it to Thundercracker, and put Shockwave’s spark into my frame. We know he’s been working with MECH. We need your help to find them and reverse this process.” 

Soundwave didn’t immediately answer, instead opting to chuckle. “Amusement: You think I want to help you.” 

“Shockwave is alive. While not directly responsible, he’s part of the reason you’re stuck here. On top of that, he’s left you to rust in an Autobot jail. Why wouldn’t you want to help us?” 

“Is that truly enough of a reason? Reality: Not all are motivated by revenge.” 

The prisoner simply stared back at Starscream, but before the Deception Lord could say anything else, Thundercracker pushed himself to the front, optics flickering as they swapped places, “What can we say to convince you to give us information? We are willing to work with you. I’m not sure we can free you, we’re on the run ourselves. But maybe we can do something else.” 

The barest twitch of his helm signaled that Soundwave noticed the change. “Thundercracker. What do you suggest?” 

The blue seeker had been wracking his processor for some sort of leverage to convince Soundwave for a while now, and one possibility was to tug at the former TIC’s spark. 

“Where are your Cassettes? Are they here?” Thundercracker put a hand near the control panel of the cell to lean in a little more. He tried to lower the stasis level a small amount to possibly convince Soundwave to be more comfortable with them. 

Soundwave didn’t respond for a moment. “Why are you in need of that information?” 

“If we free them, will that be enough for you? They’re smaller and there’s only three of them.” 

Starscream was impressed. Most would assume that Soundwave used his Cassetticons like everyone else: tools. However, Soundwave was strangely attached to the smaller mechs, having a close bond where both parties wanted to protect the other. It was a weak point that few knew how to exploit. 

It was satisfying watching the captured Decepticon mull over his options, but they were running out of time. Even though there no one was there to meet them when they broke in, chances were that there was now someone to greet them on their way out. 

“Well?” Starscream urged. 

Soundwave’s voice was quieter than before. “Cassetticons: Being held at the end of the next hall. Bring them here before leaving the facility. I will give them information how to help you.” 

There was no time for thanks, so Thundercracker spun around and made his way down to the final cell in the hall over. The cassettes were in the same stasis cuffs and cell as Soundwave, but not nearly as strong as his. The three of them looked as though they had been unceremoniously thrown into the cell in a pile. Rumble attempted to left his helm as best as he could to see better, “Hey, it’s TC!” 

Frenzy was not so lucky, sitting facing the wall with Lazerbeak’s wing jabbing him in the side. “What? How? Why? What you want?” 

Thundercracker plugged into the security panel beside the door and attempted to shut down the stasis field. “We’re here to get you out, but we need to be quick.” The cell was stubborn, and refused to let a simple hack overwhelm it so quickly. Jazz must have been involved in this one. 

“I don’t trust you.” Rumble’s visor gave a glint. 

“Then talk to Soundwave when we get there, he’s the one that told us where to find you.” 

The seeker unplugged from the panel, reared back, and punched the it as hard as he could. The cell gave a faint flicker before finally shutting down with a whine. Thundercracker reached for Rumble, gently testing the waters as he pinched his stasis cuffs and began to squeeze. “Tell me if I accidentally start to crush your wrists. We can’t fix anything right now.” 

“Oh awesome. Some rescue. Wait, is this a trap? You’re with Optimus now, right?” 

The seeker grunted. “Do you see an Autobot badge of my wings? I work _with_ Prime, I don’t work _for_ him.” 

Rumble yelped as the cuffs finally gave away and snapped off. The red and black mech rolled as many joints as quickly as he could to loosen up. They had been in stasis for too long without any maintenance. After he felt like he had more of his fine motor skills back, he ran over to his brother to take his cuffs off while Thundercracker turned his attention to Lazerbeak. When all three were free, Thundercracker stood and motioned them to follow. “We don’t have time. I’m sure by now someone is on their way to investigate the break in.” 

“Break in?!” Frenzy exclaimed. “Sounds like my kind of party!” 

“Let’s go get Soundwave!” Lazerbeak squawked and hopped into the air and flew around the corner towards their boss’s cell. 

The rest of the party ran to catch up and meet in front of Soundwave’s cell. “Boss!” Frenzy and Rumble yelled in unison as they reached the front. Lazerbeak was already at the control panel attempting to free him. 

“Relieved: It is a welcome sight to see you.” 

Thundercracker hung back for a short klik, allowing the Cassettes and Soundwave to ask about the other’s wellbeing. Starscream took over when he thought enough time had passed. After loudly planting his pede in front of the smaller mechs, he tried to move the conversation forward. “Very touching and all, but this is taking too long. Soundwave, what did you have to say to us?” 

“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Rumble looked up at and seeker and froze, realizing the demeanor of who he thought to be TC was very un-TC like. “What’s going on?” 

“Rumble, Frenzy, Lazerbeak: At ease. Thundercracker and Starscream require your help.” 

“If Starscream wanted our help, he should have sent more than just his estranged ex-trine member.” Lazerbeak quipped. 

The air made a whoosh as Starscream leaned down to intimidate the mouthy Cassetticon. “I _am_ here, so listen carefully to what your ‘boss’ has to say. Thundercracker and I didn’t come here for a pleasure trip.” 

“S-starscream?” Frenzy stuttered. 

Soundwave spoke up again. “Affirmative. They are both in Thundercracker’s frame. Which is why I require you to find Ravage.” 

“ _That’s_ your solution? Find yet another one of your Cassettes?” Starscream snarked. 

“Shut up.” Thundercracker begged internally. 

His visor flashed in irritation at the challenge. “Affirmative. I never trusted Shockwave’s friends, so I had Ravage tracking the movement of MECH for cycles now. Conclusion: He should be able to lead you to Shockwave’s new lab at this point. The Cassetticons are able to sense one another’s presence. They will lead you to him.” 

A loud boom came from above the reunion party. “Time to go.” Starscream muttered. 

“Wait, what about Soundwave?” Lazerbeak looked away from the control panel to stare at their rescuer. 

“Soundwave: Will not be joining you at this time.” Starscream and Soundwave shared a look of understanding. “Addendum: Will see you later.” 

Starscream swept up the protesting Cassetticons. “But of course.” 

It was only drones sent to attack and protect the cells. Low power to avoid any damage to the nuclear waste in the area or structure, so the seeker made quick work of them. Once they were out and in the air, they put as much distance as they could between them and Yucca Mountain in an hour. 

After recuperating, they had places to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this the last time we will see Soundwave?


	12. Dead Ends

“Hey.” 

Thundercracker snapped out of his daze and turned his helm towards Marissa when she spoke. “Hey.” 

“What are you thinking about?” 

She had found the seeker sitting to the side in the Cybertronian rec room on base. It had only been a few months since he had officially left the Decepticons, or according to some, kicked out by Starscream. One would think the latter fact would help his case and allow others to be more accepting of him, but Marissa sometimes forgot that their war had lasted longer than humans could fathom; leaving one side did not guarantee the other’s acceptance. It certainly helped that Optimus had granted him clemency and protection for his contribution in the fight against Soundwave, but Marissa couldn’t help but notice that Thundercracker was still very much alone on base. Except for when Sideswipe came to visit. 

For a seeker, she knew that being alone was a big thing. Since she had started working alongside Lennox for the EDC, and Prowl was still stalling and trying to avoid letting him help around base, Thundercracker was more or less left to himself for most of the day. Marissa would always head straight over to his room whenever she was done for the day to check on him, or even stay the night if she could. Today, when she discovered that he wasn’t in his room, Marissa went to the rec room where she was hoping he was hanging out with someone. Instead, she found him staring distantly at the wall when she came in with a blank look on his face. 

“I’m just... thinking, I guess.” 

“Yes, but about what?” 

Some sort of unpleasant expression finally formed on his face. “I don’t know! Just! Trying not to think is more accurate.” Thundercracker threw his hands in the air exasperatedly. “I’m just a little stressed!” 

As she walked towards her seeker, she motioned for him to let her up on his servo so she could talk to him better. She sat in his palm, and once he lifted Marissa to face level, she voiced her concern. “I’m just worried about you. I don’t mean to make you upset.” 

He gave her a half smile. “And I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s hard to explain how weird it is to have your own headspace. Sometimes at times like these when Starscream was busy without us, Warp and I would to send pings to try and distract him. He would get so mad! Now... now I can’t even do that in my downtime.” He vented. “I thought I would be ok, the first few months weren’t so bad, but the more time I have to myself, the more it gets to me.” 

Marissa hummed to let him know she was listening as he continued. “I wouldn’t change my decision to turn Starscream down, I’m just afraid I’m using you.” 

“Using me?” 

“What’s that word you use to describe it... as a rebound! Yeah, I’m just... worried.” 

“Is that why you haven’t completed your application to work as my partner?” She raised an eyebrow. 

“Eh... maybe...” Thundercracker gave a sheepish smile. 

Marissa stood up and placed her hand on his cheek. “TC, did you stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, we were interested in each other before your severance? Even though you weren’t in direct contact with Starscream and Skywarp, they were still there in your head. And me and you still liked each other. Even now, you’re not forcing me to do anything. I came over to your room on my own volition. But, if you feel like you need more time, I can stop doing that too.” 

A vigorous shake of his helm. “No, no, please don’t. I’m not saying that. Just promise me that you’ll let me know if you ever feel like something between is weird.” 

“Weirder than a human and an alien dating?” 

“It’s not that weird in the rest of the universe. Even if mechanicals and organics tend to stick to themselves. But I’m not worried about that.” She sat back down as he cupped her in his servos. “You mean a lot to me.” Thundercracker murmured. “I’m not trying to hurt you.” 

“You mean a lot to me too.” Marissa smiled softly as she ran a hand over a finger absently. “That’s why I’m here. And I think that having something to do will really help you through this rough patch. Why don’t we finish that application? It would give Prowl less of an excuse to avoid giving you a job. And I could certainly use more support than just Lennox in the meetings.” 

He stood from his berth and flexed his wings. “You’re absolutely right.” 

They continued to chat comfortably about senseless things late into the night, simply relaxing and enjoying the other’s company. Once they began working for the EDC together, there was sure to be less time to spend like this. 

Besides, they worked best when together. 

\----- 

She should be out there doing something. Anything! Trying to convince congress that Cybertronians were still worth citizenship. Figuring out where Thundercracker was. Why he told them Starscream was in trouble. Why he couldn’t contact her. Instead, Marissa was locked in her room, attempting to read a page from some book for the third time. Prowl had finally cut off all form of communication and blocked all outside access from any datapad she had in her possession. 

She had been lucky to contact Skywarp when she did. The coordinates to her location had been sent to him just barely in time before she had been disconnected. 

This was going to very dangerous, as it was sure to set off all the alarms when he teleported in, so he would have to be quick. With any luck, the Autobots wouldn’t be able to tell what had set the alarm off. Marissa had a small backpack hidden with a few essentials because she was sure he wouldn’t have food or water suitable for humans, and she had a long way to go by herself when he got her out. 

Lennox had come in and given her a very vague and non-confidential update that told her nothing had been done and Starscream had yet to be contacted. Either he was avoiding them or still ‘unavailable.’ Skywarp was going to be showing up any time now. He told Marissa that once Starscream returned to the Nemesis, he would give some exploration excuse to get out of there and come get her. So it seemed that that the Decepticon Lord wasn’t home. 

Until now apparently. 

There was no warning except a strange prick of electricity running down her spine to tell her that he was coming. 

The very next feeling she had running down her spine was one of panic. In her hurry to get Skywarp here, she hadn’t thought about _where_ the coordinates actually led him. Which was her room. 

Skywarp was teleporting to her room right now, and she wasn’t sure how to react beside jump off her bed to duck and cover in a corner. A violet light began to outline his figure. The crack of energy made a loud VOP as he finished teleporting, making her fold up and cover her ears to no avail: the sound was overwhelming. 

The foundation and ceiling cracked as he materialized, spraying drywall and concrete everywhere and causing her to blink through the fine dust. With a final, purple flash, Skywarp solidified, curled up as small as he could with one servo stuck in the wall and wings scraping deep lines in the ceiling. A large foot was planted very closely beside her corner. She had nearly been crushed. 

The seeker was livid. 

“You’re fragging lucky I could tell at the last astrosecond this was a small room! I could have gotten my helm or wings stuck somewhere! What were you thinking calling me _here?_ Did you forget that I’m a fragging seeker?!” 

“It was a mistake!” Marissa coughed as she swatted away the particles of her room falling around her. “I was short on time and didn’t think about it!” 

A loud alarm began to blare outside in the hallway. 

“So the Autobots and organics know I’m here. After we were so careful too.” Skywarp rolled his optics as he jerked his servo out of the wall, causing a small explosion as matter tried to exist in the same place at the same time. “Let’s just get out of here and get back to the Nemesis. I need to finish preparations for the other seekers. Scrapper doesn’t know how to command them while I’m gone.” 

“Why didn’t you do that before you got here?” She was irked he didn’t finish everything before getting her. “Taking me to the Nemesis seems really risky.” 

“When I lost contact with you yesterday, I knew I was running out of time. The Autobots are going on harder lockdown.” 

The black and purple seeker reached down and roughly grabbed her and brought her up close to the glass on his chassis. “Hold your breath. I’m not sure how humans work in unspace.” 

The rumble of his warp drive powering up didn’t even give her time to become apprehensive before they were plunged into darkness tinged with a violet edge. The moment he teleported felt like the longest moment in her life. It was like ice was forming all over her skin and her lungs wanted to burst through her throat. The redhead tried to squirm, but Skywarp’s servo held her tightly. Marissa didn’t know how she was going to make it. Finally, it was over. Her eyes took a little while to adjust after the flash from the teleport blinded her, but as she blinked, it was clear they were out of the Autobot base. 

“Welcome to my habsuite. Don’t touch anything.” He then threw her into his cockpit, so Marissa didn’t know why he bothered saying that. “Now stay quiet and let me work.” 

He began to do something on his personal monitor, presumably about the seekers, but she couldn’t tell because it was in Neocybex. “This going to take a while?” 

“No. I’m downloading the itinerary so I can hand it off to Thrust. I may not like him, but he’s still next in line to command the seekers if I’m not here.” He pressed a button and plugged into the side of the computer. “We’ll head down to the main hanger, meet with him, and leave.” 

After whipping the cable back into his wrist, the Decepticon spun on his thruster and began to walk towards the hanger. The Nemesis was dark, lit only by a few lights in the floor near the walls. The hum from the mechanisms inside the ship were somehow still louder than the workings in Skywarp’s frame even though she was closer to him. Marissa tried to imagine what it was like for Thundercracker to live here, starving, sleeping. Skywarp didn’t say anything as they traveled through the winding maze of hallways and doors. They made a final turn into a doorway that opened up to a very large room that she assumed to be the aforementioned hanger. What they weren’t expecting was Starscream to be talking to the seeker armada. Skywarp froze in the doorway, and his voice came through the speaker in his cockpit to Marissa. “Don’t move or talk. I’ll get us out of here in a klik.” 

Skywarp took the lead and made his presence known as he took his place to the right of Starscream. “Good to finally see you, my lord.” Marissa could hear the tone of impatience underlying the greeting. 

“And you as well.” Starscream returned dryly. “I was just discovering we haven’t had our expected shipment from the Ark. Care to explain?” 

“Perhaps, my lord, if you had been here to talk to Prime and his lackeys a few days ago, we would have been able to avoid this.” 

The Decepticon Lord’s helm turn slowly towards him with a very displeased look on his faceplates. “You would argue with me in front my seekers?” His yellow eyes looked Skywarp up and down over his nose. 

“I was simply suggesting that my lord would call Prime to explain the Thundercracker situation has nothing to do with us.” His passenger would have never guessed Skywarp capable of professional sounding sass. 

“Thundercracker?” 

“Scrapper and I have logged the video call we had while you were gone and saved the videos and relevant information in the control center for your review.” Skywarp motioned back towards the inside of the ship. “Apparently Thundercracker threw your name out there when he went crazy at the Capitol.” 

“Indeed.” Starscream impassively followed the direction of his SIC’s servo. “Then the logical thing to do would be to call and reassure the EDC I have had no contact with him.” 

“Yep, just like I said. Now, I have to get going. Since you’re back, I’m headed out to do some exploring. Thrust, come here. I have the training plans. I’ll be back soon.” 

Starscream watched the exchange between the seekers. “When will you return?” 

“When I’m done re-mapping out the Grand Canyon. I never got a chance to check it out since we found Shockwave in there. “ 

“I’m not sure that is necessary.” Starscream frowned. 

Marissa and Skywarp both had the same thought. “Why?” 

“It could be dangerous to explore Shockwave’s old hideout.” 

“If anything happens, you know me. I can get out of trouble faster than anyone.” 

“You may go to the canyon, but do not go near that destroyed hideout.” His insistence was sounding alarms bells in Marissa’s mind. “I would hate for you to... have an accident.” 

Something in that second changed the mood in the room. The seekers behind them shuffled uncomfortably, a few whispered amongst themselves, and the others were trying to look anywhere but at their commanders. Skywarp himself didn’t move, and Marissa could see his mouth open and close but no response came. Starscream continued to simply stare impassively at his Second, ignoring the murmur around them. 

After collecting himself, Skywarp was able to force a word out. “Right.” He lingered on the word as he thought over the thinly disguised threat. He backed away slowly and prepared to warp again. “I’ll make sure to keep a lookout.” 

Marissa held her breath again as the tell-tale sound of the warp drive reached nearly painful levels. As Starscream and his surroundings faded away, her mind was grasping for some explanation for the reaction she had just witnessed. 

Skywarp stumbled as he landed in what she assumed was the bottom of the Grand Canyon based on her surroundings. Red dust rose from the dry dirt that Skywarp landed in, so it took her a moment to realize it was in front of the opening of Shockwave’s temporary lab they had raided. So Skywarp had decided to ignore Starscream’s warnings. It made sense to start there, really. Where the strangeness all began. 

But her ride had other things on his mind. “What was that?” She could see he was holding his helm in his servos through the yellow glass of his cockpit. “I don’t... that’s not... not to me!” 

“Hey!” Marissa rapped on the glass to get his attention. “Let me out! Don’t freak out with me inside you!” 

He sat on a nearby rock and opened up his cockpit to deposit her in his servo. Optics were flickering as his processor tried to make sense of something, but she couldn’t tell what had him so confused. “What’s going on? Starscream’s threat have you scared?” 

“You don’t know anything about him!” He bared his teeth at her in anger. “Me and TC knew everything about him! We were trine! Even when we broke up, Starscream still treated me as his own. The veiled threats, the death threats, were never directed towards us. Sure, he was hard on us, but we were his wings, we had to uphold certain expectations. This! This...” His rant tapered off and he made a vague gesture with his other servo. “There’s something going on, and I don’t like it. I wanted it to be the severance, I really did. It would make more sense. But... this is too much.” 

Suddenly, his scowl deepened. “Why am I telling you all this?” 

Marissa sat down, threw her legs over the edge of his servo and crossed them. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because neither of us wants to accept someone close to us has snapped. Or maybe it’s because we know what goes on behind closed doors.” She huffed as she blew a stray hair out of her face. 

“Closed doors.” He repeated faintly, staring at the cave in front of them. “I think that this one is a good place for us to start.” 

“What?” 

A snicker. “I was going to drop you off somewhere to let you go on your merry way. But seeing as the Autobots probably know that it was me inside their base, it’s not like relations are going to get any better when Starscream calls them. Especially not with me. Might as well make the most of it and help you out, yeah?” 

The sudden mood change gave her emotional whiplash. His new upbeat attitude felt very fake, but something told Marissa that she shouldn’t question it at this time. The hot wind that blew through the bottom of the canyon picked up, sending her more of her hair billowing in her face. She sputtered, and slapped her red locks out of the way. “If you’re up for it, I’m sure we can cover more ground than me on my own. But why start here?” 

Skywarp stood and sauntered over to the cave. “He was screaming about Shockwave at the Capitol, and the last place we saw Shockwave alive was here. So, let’s see what was left behind, maybe it will shed some light on this weirdness. Point us in the right direction.” 

“Worth a try.” 

Much like the halls of the Nemesis, the cave didn’t have much light. It was deeper than they had expected it to be, and it became darker and darker the farther they went in. Marissa strained to see, not even the red light from Skywarp’s optics wasn’t enough for her to discern anything that wasn’t the floor directly below them. “Are you able to see in the dark?” She asked, already knowing the answer. 

“Course I can.” 

“You have a light for me?” 

“Nope.” 

The walk felt longer than it actually was, but when they reached the end, they were surprised. There was nothing but a dead end waiting for them at the supposed end of the cave. 

“How?!” Marissa practically howled. “Was he just waiting here when our people raided this cave, was he just sitting here twiddling his thumbs?” She ground her teeth. “There has to be something here that we aren’t seeing. A hidden switch or something.” 

“Probably.” He responded in a sing-song voice. “We can spend time looking for it, or I can just do this!” 

With a deafening explosion, Skywarp had shot through what had turned out to be a false wall. Marissa coughed. “Is tearing through walls without looking around first a seeker thing?! Maybe it would be wise to be quiet?” 

“I’m not exactly known for my espionage skills.” 

“I don’t fucking care, this little adventure is going to end before it even begins if we can’t proceed with caution.” 

“Again, I can get out here fast if there’s a problem. Maybe you should worry about getting squashed by accident.” 

Marissa sank her face into her hands exasperatedly as Skywarp maneuvered around the debris of the crumbled rock and into a large expanse of... 

“Nothing’s here.” Skywarp supplied helpfully. 

It was true. The cave was dark, but there were a few hanging lights from the ceiling that were somehow still on, providing a little illumination on the empty cave. Grooves in the floor and scratches on the walls suggested a large thing was dragged across them. Not even given enough time to pick up items to avoid damage to their surroundings. This meant that whatever was here, was moved out in a hurry. “The lights have their own power supply. They have to get recharged every now and then, but since they’re still pretty bright, I’ll bet it hasn’t been that long since that’s happened.” Skywarp observed while poking one. 

“Let me down. Something has to be here. Why would Starscream try to scare us away?” 

The duo rummaged around. Skywarp scanned more walls and Marissa tried to see if there was anything left at ground level. After a while, it really seemed like nothing was left to help. Marissa even cut her hand trying to move a rock away from the wall. 

“Fuck!” The EDC agent held her hand and tried to keep it from bleeding. When that didn’t work, she grabbed a handful of her shirt and gripped it with force to hopefully stop up the cut. “Why can’t we find anything?” 

“Face it, we might have been too late.” Skywarp groused as he hit his helm on one of the hanging lights for a second time. 

As the light swung back and forth, it cast the seeker’s silhouette on the opposite wall, drawing her attention to where the smoothness of the cave was interrupted by a nondescript box inserted in the wall. Marissa narrowed her eyes, trying to get a better look at it in the dark. “Hey, what’s that?” She pointed at the box. 

It was about eye level with the seeker. “Huh, can’t believe I missed that. It’s the recharge box for the lights. Cybertronian. But that’s nothing we couldn’t have already guessed.” 

“How often do these lights have to be recharged?” 

“Every few days.” He turned to look at her as they realized the same thing at the same time. 

“It’s been a few weeks.” Her eyes widened. “Someone was here more recently than they would like us to believe.” 

Skywarp fiddled with the box until it popped open revealing one large socket. “Who’s the last mech to recharge this, then?” His finger transformed into a matching socket and dove in. His optics dimmed and flickered and he looked inside, but brightened when he obviously stumbled on something important. “It wasn’t a Cybertronian that recharged this. It was a device made to mimic a Cybertronian. There’s no actual signature to it.” 

They were on to something. “And who would move Shockwave’s stuff with that kind of technology if it wasn’t the EDC?” 

“MECH.” Seeker and woman came to the conclusion. 

“Starscream is involved with MECH.” Skywarp looked furious, but focused. “But what does that have to do with TC?” 

“It just means that Shockwave is somehow directly responsible for his disappearance.” 

Who was left to help them but themselves?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skywarp: I've connected the two dots.  
> Marissa: You didn't connect shit.  
> Skywarp: I've connected them.


End file.
